To say that the new two-year budget approved by state lawmakers represents “the best budget in a decade” for North Carolina’s public four-year universities (as UNC president Margaret Spellings did in a recent Charlotte Observer op-ed) is hyperbole that reflects a troubling new “normal” in which expectations for our state have been drastically lowered. Facts simply don’t support this inflated claim. The hard reality is that the new budget continues to ignore boosting state support for the UNC system to ensure access to (and affordability of) a high-quality college education. Furthermore, eroding state support for higher education foregoes opportunities that can help keep our state at the forefront of research and innovation – a realm that attracts industry into the state and helps create good-paying jobs in all of our communities.

When you lower the bar enough for what’s possible, you create a new normal in which an inch forward can be falsely sold as leaps and bounds. The austerity budgeting that has defined nearly a decade of North Carolina policymakers’ approach to serving their communities has been driven by an insatiable appetite among House and Senate leadership for costly tax cuts. This approach has ushered in a new normal in which expectations have been lowered for what our state can and should be.

Lawmakers have passed a new state budget that will serve as a roadmap for how North Carolina will operate for the next two years — unfortunately, this roadmap has numerous potholes and an unclear destination. It does not reflect the spending decisions that can drive better economic outcomes or strengthen the connection to opportunity for every community across the state.

The latest BTC Brief from the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center is out and it is a “must read” for anyone interested in what’s really going on with state budget debate. In “Saving for a rainy day when NC needs and umbrella today,” BTC analyst Cedric Johnson provides a powerful critique of recent proposals at the state Legislative Building to further bolster the state “rainy day fund” at the same time that a host of core public systems and structures remain destructively under-funded.

Access to affordable postsecondary education is important to building a workforce in North Carolina that attracts and retains good-paying jobs across the state. Around two out of every three jobs in the state will require some form of post-secondary education by the year 2020. Our state can meet this challenge, but only if we make sure that more people can access and complete these programs. And the biggest barrier to this remains the unaffordability of post-secondary education.