As the University prepares for major cuts in state funding, many have criticized the state legislature for failing to respond appropriately.Many feel education should be given priority during budget shortfalls instead of bearing most of the economic burden, arguing the constitution should be amended to bail out higher education.Economically and philosophically, however, cuts to education are not bad. Rather, they are natural and justified.Few would say it’s bad when the fast gazelle survives at the expense of the slow one. It’s natural selection — survival of the fittest.The same applies here. When something becomes unsustainably large, the economy will contract it. Only the economically fit survive economic attack.Shortfalls simply reveal the excess within the current public education model in Louisiana.The Louisiana Board of Regents oversees four public systems consisting of 40 schools — and that’s not including private colleges. For a population around 4.5 million, that’s excessive.As the legislature struggles to make ends meet and the federal stimulus stream runs dry, there’s a reason the Louisiana Constitution hits higher education during budget shortfalls: It can take the hit better than any other sector of public funding.Also, while state-funded schooling may have been useful in previous centuries, modern technology makes self-educating simple for anyone with computer access.Amending the state constitution to pump more dollars into an overweight, outdated system would be silly. Those dollars would be allocated better elsewhere, particularly in the pockets of businesses and investors who could invest in privatized education — if the market leads them to.Budget cuts, though painful initially, will move education away from archaic means of learning toward modern alternatives.I’m not for abolishing the public higher education system all out — yet. Drastic change is rarely good, and schools are vital economic entities.Rather, public and private can compete, with the winner determining our educational fates.In the current financial crisis, it’s important to remember no one complained in 2004 when the economy was solid, appropriations were increasing yearly, and the Flagship Agenda called for salary increases and massive campus expansions.First pitched in the fall of 2002, the Flagship Agenda planned to increase research support, faculty, faculty pay, scholarships and library holdings by $48 million until 2010.The projected cuts from the academic core next year? $48.2 million.There’s a reason those numbers are so close. The University, like many businesses in the previous decade’s financial bubble, spent beyond its means to invest poorly.If the market demanded flagship status for the University, then Chancellor Michael Martin’s infamous flagship fee proposal wouldn’t have crumbled like Icarus.Budget cuts are not bad — just process. And process, as Robert Penn Warren says in “All the King’s Men,” is neither morally good nor morally bad: “We may judge results, but not process.”The state has other financial fish to fry, and the inflated LSU System can absorb blows other sectors can’t to make way for modernized educating options, putting Louisiana at the forefront of educational evolution.In all, education is voluntary. You learn what you want to learn regardless of the system.Our minds can overcome any financial hardship. We must only adjust our approach and turn tragedy to opportunity.Regardless, budget cuts are an interfered economy correcting itself, and the delays brought by stimulus money, increased appropriations and inflated economic pursuits only make the correction more painful.And with figures like $74 million in cuts for next year being thrown around, it will be painful.But pain and morality are unrelated here. It’s economic Darwinism, and to call cuts unfair is simply foolish and short-sighted.Cody Worsham is a 21-year-old mass communication senior from Baton Rouge. Contact him on Twitter @ TDR_Cworsham.—-Contact Cody Worsham at [email protected]