On Feb. 14, Valentine's Day, the Collegian printed a small front-page article on the U.S. Student Association's plea to students to phone the White House and request more federal funds for higher education.

Unfortunately, the phone number was not included in the article. Consequently, I would venture to say that at most, a handful of Penn State students actually made the call.

This attitude of students toward their duties as citizens to hold the government responsible for its actions is exactly what I find infuriating. As some readers may have noticed, the Collegian has run four articles in recent weeks illustrating the government's (state and federal) diminishing support for higher education (Feb. 7, 12, 14 and 15).

Some of the programs being cut or inadequately supported are: Pell Grant Program, Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant Program, Perkins Loan Program, Stafford Loan Program and state funding for Penn State which has a direct bearing on the annual tuition increase.

Obviously, President Bush and Governor Casey are not placing higher education too high on their list of priorities. Ironically though, President Bush would like to be known as "the education president," when in fact he's keeping a "steady course" with the unenthusiastic educational policies of the Reagan administration.

Before I criticize President Bush too harshly, I would like to place blame on those who deserve it -- the students. President Bush and Governor Casey are politicians (an election year for Casey nonetheless), and balancing a a budget without a tax increase is a political must, while cutting funding for higher education is not in any great way politically dangerous.

Why? Because students simply have no political voice; while they're eligible to vote, people between the ages of 18 and 24 vote in dramatically lower percentages than do all other age groups (according to census bureau statistics).

So if Bush, Casey, and other politicians don't have a sizable block of voters to answer to for such cuts, then what's to stop them?

Let's face it, for all practical purposes America's college-age men and women are, on the whole, politically apathetic -- and now some of us are going to pay for it, literally.

So, if you want to gripe about rising tuition and decreasing financial aid, go no further than to your mirror. And, if you want to do something about it, why not register to vote, write your state representative to the general assembly, your congressman or senator or Governor Casey or President Bush.

I won't pretend that the government is entirely responsive to its constituency, but if we want to be critical of its actions, then it's our responsibility to at least attempt to alter its direction through the channels of democracy before we accuse it of doing us wrong.