News last week that tuition will be going up at State System of Higher Education universities, including Slippery Rock University, was not really surprising. The tuition hike, which will amount to about $200 for students attending Slippery Rock, is roughly in line with inflation and it’s the eighth time in 10 years that the state system has kept tuition increases close to inflation.

Those incr4eases do not seem unwarranted, and attending college at the one of the state system schools is still a relative bargain.

Some other recent higher-education news is more troubling. A report by the U.S. Department of Education on college affordability ranked Pennsylvania colleges as among the most expensive public universities in the country for in-state students.

The report ranked the University of Pittsburgh, main campus, in the top spot, with tuition and fees of $16,590. The next most-expensive public university was Penn State, main campus, coming in at $16,444. Temple University, in Philadelphia, was the sixth most expensive at $13,596.

If it were another type of list, say top academic performance or highest job-placement for graduates, Pennsylvanians would be cheering. But seeing Pennsylvania universities dominate the list of most-expensive public colleges, taking 17 of the top 34 positions, is troubling.

Does it mean that professors at Pennsylvania universities are better paid than their counterparts in other states? Probably not. Does it mean that administrators at Pitt and Penn State are paid more than administrators at other state supported universities? Probably not.

The most likely explanation is that financial support from Harrisburg lags behind the support provided to most other state-supported or state-related universities by their legislatures and taxpayers. It seems to be the only explanation — and it’s a troubling one.

While nobody wants to be paying higher taxes, it does not seem right for Pennsylvania college students — and often their parents — to `pay more and take on more debt to attend public universities in the state.

Offering an explanation for its high tuition figure, a spokesman for Pitt pointed to a study that shows Pennsylvania ranks 47th out of 50 states in terms of per-capita spending on higher education. At current levels, state financial support for Penn State and Pitt is at about the same level it was in the 1960s, taking inflation into account.

Pennsylvania is also well represented on the list for most expensive private universities, but it does not dominate that list the way it does the public university list. Carnegie Mellon University ranked seventh on that list, with tuition and fees amounting to $45,760. Seven of the 65 most expensive private universities are in Pennsylvania.

But the more troubling issue is the dominance of Pennsylvania’s public universities and the failure of Harrisburg lawmakers to keep state funding for higher education on a par with other states.

Most colleges and universities across the country can be criticized for not doing a better job of controlling costs and for getting into spending wars, competing with other universities by offering fancier dorm rooms or student unions with climbing walls. But state support is a separate issue and it’s one that deserves a public debate.

Taxpayers might not want to pay more in state taxes to boost support for higher education, but it’s possible there could be public support for a natural gas extraction tax that directed money to close the state-funding gap so that Pennsyvlania’s in-state tuition is more in line with what’s found in other states.