Post-secondary education funding is one of those issues that I could go on about forever. My time as president of my student union in college and as chair of the Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations exposed me to too many books, studies, policy papers and personal stories on the subject to begin to summarize in a 750-word column.

This week in the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel, however, I try to lay out in basic terms where Maine is in terms of the financial burden we place on our students (the first or second worst state in the nation, depending on how you interpret the data), what this means for our long-term economic prospects (bad things) and some first steps to make things better (improving the Opportunity Maine program, re-investing in our public higher education system).

I restrained myself from spending the entire piece wonking out about the relative effectiveness of up-front versus after-graduation grant and tax credit programs on increasing access and decreasing debt, but despite that forbearance still barely scratched the surface of the issue.

I believe that the lack of investment in higher education and in Maine's young people is the largest sleeping threat to our state. It's ignored by politicians because it doesn't have the immediate effects of an issue like the economic recession and because current students, graduates repaying their loans and the tens of thousands of Maine children and families that give up on school for financial reasons don't have the organization and lobbying power of even Maine's whoopie pie industry.

Soon, however, as Maine faces an outmoded economy and demographic winter, it's going to become clear just how short-sighted we were.