With the specter of a faculty strike clouding the fall semester at Slippery Rock University and the 13 other state-owned schools, it’s an uncertain time to be a student in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASHHE).

Will students get what they paid for this semester? Will members of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF) work for yet another year without a contract? How will the system’s financial struggles impact students and faculty in five years, or 10?

There are no easy answers — except when it comes to that first question. Students shouldn’t have to pay the price for a dysfunctional bargaining process that has left both union members and state negotiators publicly exasperated. The two sides have been meeting for well over a year now, with little to show for it.

Members of the union are already living up to their reputation when it comes to collective bargaining. This is the fifth time APSCUF members have voted to authorize a strike during contract negotiations.

To their credit, they’ve never followed through and walked out on students before. We hope that holds true. Negotiators from both sides — who have been growing increasingly vocal about their dissatisfaction with each other — must work to prevent a job action that harms students across PASSHE.

The fiscal pressures the system is facing are undeniable and predictable. Since the Great Recession, Pennsylvania has cut its funding of higher education by 37 percent, the third-largest cut in the nation.

Those cuts have cost employees their jobs and hit students and their families in the pocketbook. The 107,000-student system — which has struggled with falling enrollment since 2010 — has shed about 1,000 employees, according to PASSHE spokesman Ken Marshall.

Students in Pennsylvania now pay on average 72 percent of their tuition bill each year, the fifth-highest rate in the country. That correlates with rising student debt loads. According to the Institute for College Access and Success, Pennsylvania students carry, on average, the third-highest debt load in the nation.

Reasonable people can disagree about what the best course forward is for PASSHE and APSCUF regarding this contract. But that argument needs to play out at the negotiating table or in formal arbitration proceedings.

Students clearly are paying their fair share. It would be a serious misstep for faculty members to take their frustrations out on them and walk out of the classroom.