It’s College Savings Month in Michigan.

Well, at least if you ask Gov. John Engler and Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus.

But what does that mean to the average student? Basically, a whole lot of nothing.

The governor’s office is trying to highlight programs such as the Michigan Education Savings Plan, which gives families a tax-exempt college savings account that can be used for educational purposes. While meant for long-term investments, it’s said these accounts are also good for current students wanting to save money.

And while programs like these savings accounts are worthwhile measures to help pay for college, nothing in this “special month” does much to ensure the state’s 15 public universities continue to offer a quality education.

Instead, college administrators are left trying to squeeze just a little more out of their strained budgets due to state appropriations that fall below the rate of inflation.

Maybe state lawmakers should look a little more closely at repealing the tuition tax credit. Intended to reward universities for controlling tuition increases, none of the state’s public universities qualify this year. The tax credit really does little more than damage our public universities’ budgets further and force larger tuition increases. MSU students, for instance, would get a $75 refund if the state were to ax the failed credit and put that money into university budgets now.

Instead, we get a political move aimed for a little good press for a lame-duck governor and his second-in-command as he prepares his own gubernatorial bid.

Not everybody realizes it, but the state is hindering public universities more than helping them. Colleges around the state are tightening budgets and cutting costs wherever they can due to poor state allocations, and most students can see the effects firsthand.

Our own university aims to cut another $5.5 million from its current budget for the 2001-2002 budget - that’s after a staggering 8.9 percent tuition increase.

And yet Posthumus has written the presidents of state universities - at the University of Michigan, Wayne State University and here - to scold them about failing to slash their budgets enough.

In all fairness, Posthumus isn’t the only candidate for governor who has sided against universities for political gain. Former Gov. James Blanchard, vying for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, has taken an admonishing tone over tuition increases as well.

But instead of criticizing university presidents, state officials need to take a look at themselves and their failure to provide for higher education initiatives.

We can all sing the praises of College Savings Month for the next year, but its programs don’t truly address the problem the state’s universities - and their students - are facing now.