Last week the Kansas House voted to let universities raise their salaries for employees, a good move because every university president had told them they needed to increase wages to competitive levels.

Sadly this good news was countered with the poor decision to cut spending for universities across the board by 4 percent. This is a move that will force universities to raise tuitions even higher, and most likely negate the reason universities like Wichita State wanted the wage cap removed.

The rationale for these funding cuts is that the state needs to reduce funding due to revenue losses caused by tax cuts. The argument used by the Gov. Sam Brownback administration is that tax cuts increase employment which increases tax revenue.

As of now we have instead seen massive decreases in revenue and the need for tough choices in funding, with the solution trumpeted by the Brownback administration being more tax cuts and more revenue cuts.

While tax cuts work in theory to bring new jobs in, we know for a fact that investments in education bring back even better results.

Investing in universities provides for a better-educated workforce, and a well-educated workforce in turn creates a stronger economy as they will have more purchasing power and bring in new businesses attracted to their unique talents.

No better example can be given than the tremendous amount of research and training that goes into aeronautics in Wichita because of WSU. WSU is world renowned for its work in this field and as a result, numerous groups have created businesses, and thus jobs, in Wichita.

Seeing how WSU’s research in aeronautics has led to businesses locating in Wichita and creating new jobs that didn’t exist before, it boggles the mind to try and understand why millions of dollars will be cut from multiple research initiatives.

Apparently the Kansas legislature prefers lots of low paying jobs and an uneducated workforce versus higher paying jobs with a well-educated workforce equipped to start more businesses.