In 2003, former Washington state Govs. Dan Evans and Booth Gardner touted a capital budget plan for the state’s universities by providing an additional $1.7 billion of debt capacity. In a column published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, they wrote:

“In 2008, only five years from now, Washington will graduate a record-breaking class of high school seniors. The baby-boom echo will squarely challenge us. Unless we act now to prepare new space and to upgrade existing classrooms, we risk closing the doors of opportunity to many qualified graduates. They either will lose the chance for needed education or will seek college elsewhere.”

Swayed by their arguments that the four-year universities and community and technical colleges were overenrolled, the Legislature acted and campus construction boomed.

Currently, the Higher Education Coordinating Board is working on a 10-year master plan that focuses on a problem of a different sort. Will the next generation of students turn away from college because of costs and the absence of a higher education tradition in their families?

Information collected by the HEC Board points to that possibility if the Legislature doesn’t respond. For instance:

“By 2030, 37 percent of K-12 students will be racial or ethnic minorities. They are more likely to come from low-income households and are more likely to drop out.

“The current education system is ill-prepared to adapt to changing demographics.

“Washington state adults have a relatively low level of educational attainment, so the culture of attending college may not be instilled in their children.

“Twenty-five percent of Washingtonians ages 18 to 24 didn’t graduate from high school. The size of this group is equal to the next 10 high school graduating classes.

The challenge of building a college-bound attitude is difficult enough, but the state also faces the depressingly familiar trend of declining educational investments from the Legislature and the federal government. College costs are increasingly borne by students and their families, and tuition hikes easily outstrip inflation and wage gains.

Nowadays, diplomas and debt go hand in hand.

A college degree has become a requirement in most well-paying fields. That trend will continue. But if the Legislature cannot find a way to reform the education system from prekindergarten to college and make higher education more affordable, it will flunk one of its biggest tests.

“If you build it they will come” was a popular line from “Field of Dreams.” If only it were that easy in real life.