All this amounts, arguably, to a pillaging of the country’s greatest state universities. And that pillaging is not a matter of necessity, as many elected officials would insist—it’s a matter of choice. If Wisconsin’s governor and legislature succeed in eliminating or emasculating tenure for faculty members at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, they can say goodbye to the greatness of that institution of higher learning. If Florida’s governor asks students in the humanities or arts to pay higher tuition than those who major in business or STEM subjects, Florida’s universities are apt to deteriorate in quality. And just so it doesn’t seem like I’m cherry picking, consider what North Carolina’s governor said not long ago: “If you want to take gender studies, that’s fine, go to a private school and take it. But I don’t want to subsidize that if that’s not going to get someone a job.” The consequence of such policy choices, it seems, is that tuition will go up and access for kids from poorer families will go down.

But such outcomes can be prevented. Those in the voting public who believe that they can get something for nothing or that quality will simply materialize out of the ether can revisit their assumptions. Governments can increase the marginal tax rates on substantial incomes so that those who have benefitted most from the nation’s prosperity pay a fair share of taxes that enables both access and educational opportunity for talented young people. The United States currently has one of the lowest marginal tax rates in the industrial world. Transferred resources from the very rich (less than 1 percent of nation’s population controls more than 25 percent of its wealth), corporations, and from lower-priority institutions could build a more robust educational system in our country. There are important positive consequences in economic growth from such investments at the state and local level, as has been demonstrated in studies of Silicon Valley and in the area surrounding Boston.

In short, today essentially everyone who attends Berkeley pays a maximum of around $13,500 a year—even if his or her parents are billionaires. At Stanford or at Ivy League universities that same student would pay (and could afford to pay) the full sticker price of tuition (around $50,000 a year), but the youngster from a poorer economic background might well go free. There is not enough differentiation in tuition pricing between those who come from very wealthy background and those whose parents can barely make ends meet.

Higher education also needs more political leaders who are willing to risk their jobs by committing to ostensibly risky investments in K-12 and higher education. Every elected politician should have quitting issues—in short, be willing to resign or risk reelection when others undermine his or her core values. Take the former Connecticut Governor and Congressman Lowell Weicker, who was willing to sacrifice his leadership positions in defense of his tax policies. It’s time for the states and the federal government to step up to the need to invest creatively in education and raise public awareness about the wisdom of these investments. And it’s time for more members of the voting public to support candidates who meet this description.