The recession has made it glaringly apparent that people saddled with debt have a hard time contributing to the economy. The university can’t provide enough money to keep students debt-free because of its own budget problems.

Even now, MSU is trying to decide which programs are expendable and how many class sections are absolutely necessary.

I propose MSU shift part of its burden elsewhere.

MSU should work with Lansing Community College to ensure students can afford to go to college and graduate without amassing huge amounts of debt.

I’m aware there are transfer programs geared toward identifying qualified students at the community college level and encouraging them to attend a university; that’s a good start.

I think MSU should send part of its incoming freshman class to LCC. The students still would be enrolled at MSU, but would attend the majority of their classes at LCC.

It would take some doing, but the university could decide which individuals would be best suited to on-campus classes, and send the rest down the road to LCC.

Slowly, the balance of classes will shift from LCC to MSU. Once they’re finished with LCC, they won’t have to transfer; life will go on as normal.

In theory, both institutions could share the costs of classes. MSU would be able to shed some general requirement courses by moving them to LCC, eliminating some scheduling conflicts and freeing up some of the budget. Meanwhile, LCC would provide facilities and professors, see an upswing in its number of students and take in tuition at a higher rate.

Students would pay a tuition that would be less than MSU’s but more than LCC’s, with LCC collecting the difference.

They emerge as juniors with little to no debt, but the same amount of knowledge.

It all sounds fine and good (to me at least), but execution is considerably different from planning.

What about housing?

Part of the college experience is the freedom of leaving home, making your own decisions and meeting new people. LCC does not have student housing, and commuting from MSU can be a hassle.

Commuting, unfortunately, might be unavoidable. There isn’t much room to build housing in downtown Lansing, although Lansing’s trying. Inevitably, there will be problems moving a large number of students from campus to campus.

There might, however, be a silver lining of sorts. More students riding buses probably would mean the Capital Area Transportation Authority would need to compensate with more buses; shortening the wait-time between each bus. The creation of new routes also could relieve traffic congestion.

In addition, some Lansing businesses might find a boost in sales because of a larger number of individuals spending money between or after classes in the downtown area.

The question then becomes: Who has to commute?

MSU is a community. Part of attending is staying in one place with many people who are striving to do the same thing: Graduate. Removing individuals creates a division between the students who were good enough to attend “MSU proper” and those relegated to commuter status.

This is the part where working hard in high school pays off. As a society, we’ve been up in arms about hard work leading to just rewards. Taking classes on campus is the reward.

It isn’t perfect — this whole idea, in fact, is imperfect. Some students will barely miss the cut-off and feel cheated. That’s just a fact of life.

There still would be a sense of community at the program level, much like there is now. Students would interact with their peers on a regular basis, only on a different campus.

That being said, the phrase “separate, but equal” is implied when separating two groups of individuals. There also are questions as to whether the quality of instruction would be sustained if classes were moved to LCC.

General classes are meant to introduce students to a particular field. If MSU and LCC work together to create a curriculum, there should be no drop-off in quality. All it would really take is some tailoring to fulfill further MSU criteria.

Honestly, I don’t know if this plan is even in the realm of possibility. There are questions as to whether LCC could handle the course load increase — building space is limited — or if the loss of revenue would be too much for MSU.

I do believe, however, that as times get more desperate, MSU should try to think beyond cuts and devise ways to use the entire Lansing area to its advantage.

David Barker is a State News staff writer. Reach him at barkerd@msu.edu.