Making sure our kids get a high-quality education is the key to our future economic success, but in these tough times education is costing more and more. From early childhood to college, it’s no secret that a good education costs money and many students need some help along the way.

Many families, as Minnesota 2020 points out, are finding that their childen need homework assistance. While some parents are able to help their students themselves, many simply don’t have the knowledge–or don’t remember it from their schooling days–to help. Everyone can’t afford private tutors, but even free homework centers cost money in transportation and time.

We need to figure out how to make after-school help accessible to students because the burden of cost shouldn’t lie on parents. Some schools in Minnesota are thinking of shifting additional cost burden onto the backs of parents in order to keep programs around. In Lakeville, a proposal has been brought forth to shift the cost of all extracurricular activities onto parents in order to avoid cutting them completely. The price for traditional extracurricular activities such as hockey or debate will end up costing parents between $700-$800.

North Branch High School is one of Minnesota’s hardest-hit districts, according to the Star Tribune. They have already cut the marching band and the drama club in order to deal with budget cuts because voters have turned down seven straight referendums. For 3,500 students the school week has been cut to four days instead of five.

With such drastic measure being taken by high schools to deal with state budget cuts, it’s no surprise that a lot of incoming college freshmen thought about the economy when choosing their college. A new survey finds that the economic downturn affected the choice of where to attend college for 6 out of 10 current freshmen at four-year schools.

Young adults are very conscious of how tough these economic times have been. They can’t help but notice when their high school cuts programs like band and forces their parents to shell out hundreds of dollars for them to stay in their sport. We should be finding a way to support and help our children succeed in their education, because they are our future. We should be investing in them, not forcing schools to cut programs or shift the burden of cost onto parents because of budget cuts.

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