COLLEGE GRANTS? WHAT ABOUT LOANS?

Wednesday marks the start of the 1998 legislative session in Jefferson City, and politicians are busy readying bills to be pursued this session.

Near the top of Gov. Mel Carnahan's agenda is a renewed push for state financial help for Missourians in their first two years of higher education.

Carnahan's so-called Challenge Scholarship stalled last session amid church-state debates. Some legislative backers complained that private and parochial school tuitions wouldn't be paid.

So this time around the governor wants to simply give the money away in the form of outright grants. Why? Loans are a much better idea, since repaid sums could be redistributed to help more students down the road.

But as always, Carnahan is eager to follow in the footsteps of President Clinton. In 1997, the president pushed through the federal Hope Scholarship, a $1,500-a-year credit for taxpayers with college expenses. As Clinton announced in his bus tour kickoff in Cape Girardeau last summer, he wants to make two years of college as universal as four years of high school is today.

It is a nice idea, but not very practical. First off, far too many children don't make it through those "universal" four years of high school. Secondly, higher education should be a choice, not a mandate.

And then there's the whole chicken-and-the-egg problem with government grants and tax credits. One has to wonder if college tuition continues to climb because institutions realize that government will make up the difference with increased grants and scholarships.

Without the government, most of these institutions would have priced themselves out of the market long ago. With the government gravy train, higher education has not had to bend to the law of supply and demand and adjust their prices accordingly.

Good intentions don't always make good law. Government aid is always tied to a endless string of rules and regulations, by which colleges and universities must also abide. And that too drives up the cost of higher education.

This time around, Carnahan wants to target financial aid to low-income Missourians. And his staff is at work to determine whether the state can afford this multimillion-dollar idea. Affordability has certainly never stopped the governor or Legislature before.

The fact of the matter is Missouri is rolling in extra dough -- so much so that the Hancock Amendment is forcing the state to mail out refunds. Instead of looking for new ways to spend money, the legislature should figure out how to give back taxpayers all they're due. Then each family can decide exactly how they want to spend these "extra" tax dollars -- money that is theirs in the first place -- whether it be on higher education or other pressing needs.