May 15, 2015 3 min read

Editorial voices from newspapers around the country as compiled by the Associated Press:

West Virginia University’s decision to raise in-state tuition by nearly 10 percent beginning this fall is, sadly, a trend that is all too common among universities in the United States.

WVU officials blamed the need for such an increase on losing state funding over the past few years as state lawmakers wrestle with their own budget shortfalls.

In 2011 – for the first time ever – tuition revenue surpassed state funding as a revenue source for U.S. colleges and universities.

Putting increased emphasis on tuition comes with a cost. As of 2014, total student debt owed in the United States reached an estimated $1.2 trillion. To put that into perspective, as a percentage of household debt, only mortgage debt is higher.

WVU ranks high nationally for the quality of its academic programs and the relatively low cost of tuition compared with other state flagship institutions. Whether that continues will depend on WVU finding new ways to fund operations that aren’t based on student-generated revenue.

Ohioans face serious threats to the integrity of our democracy: income inequality, partisan gerrymandering, big-money politics. Voter fraud is not among these threats.

Yet rather than address such pressing concerns, Republicans in the state House are again taking up a bill that would require Ohioans to present photo identification when they vote. This unnecessary measure would do nothing to make elections more secure. But it would do much to keep voters, especially poor and minority Ohioans, away from the polls.

The federal Voting Rights Act prohibits governments from posing discriminatory barriers to voting, such as literacy tests and poll taxes. Photo ID laws effectively function as a poll tax on poor voters who cannot afford the fees for a driver’s license or passport.

Ohio law already provides reliable ways of verifying voters’ identities at the polls. If lawmakers want to improve Ohio’s election system, they should focus on making voter registration easier and more accessible, not restricting the vote.

Having seen legislative efforts stumble or fall short in either keeping undocumented immigrants out or sending home those already here, sights are now set on a higher goal: denying United States birthright citizenship by changing the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

Ratified in 1868, the 14th amendment has its roots in the Civil War and Reconstruction and the status of the freed slaves. With an effort in parts of the country to deny emancipated slaves their rights based on the color of their skin, those working on the amendment saw the need to protect the children of immigrants as well.

Almost 150 years later, two Republican House members have filed bills to correct what they claim is misinterpretation of the amendment. That this amendment has been upheld by the courts throughout the decades does not matter to those rooting out undocumented immigrants. Instead, they rally around the cry of “anchor babies,” based upon the belief that women, who are here illegally, are having babies in the U.S. so as to secure for the child citizenship and for themselves an indefinite stay in the country.

Babies make for particularly inviting targets, especially when relying on xenophobic thinking and hazy anecdotal evidence that feed the anchor baby myth. Parents who are here illegally can be deported, even if their child has been born here. Targeting babies is also easier than comprehensive immigration reform.