I'm probably not the best person to write this column.

My family has incurred little to no debt paying my way through college here -- and that was by design.

For us, Penn State was the affordable option. But after spending several semesters reporting on the rise -- and, well, rise -- of Penn State tuition, I worry that it's becoming less and less the safely subsidized choice for too many potential students.

On a Greyhound bus back from New York this month, I met two sisters from Detroit who called me "Rich Boy" after I told them I went to Penn State. I didn't know how to react.

It's something I might expect to hear if I'd held out for one of the Ivies, perhaps.

But I didn't think myself that obtrusive, choosing public transportation for my ride and a public college for my home.

One of the sisters asked me: "It's like $6,000 to go there, right? Like U. Michigan?"

I gulped: "Actually, it's more."

(For the record, they pay about $6,600 a year in Ann Arbor, but it's more than $8,000 for in-state tuition at University Park. I won't even get into the out-of-state price tags.)

Penn State might still be the reasonable alternative compared with the small liberal arts schools I turned down four years ago, but I took to heart what my fellow passengers had to say, even though they were still high school students.

At some point, Pennsylvania's flagship land grant institution became the place for "rich" kids in some people's eyes, and that's indicative of a larger, more nuanced, but nonetheless troubling, trend.

At some point, state subsidized higher education got knocked down a few notches on the agenda of this proud "commonwealth" and it's never been able to claw back up.

Back when unprecedented prosperity ruled and Y2K seemed our biggest worry, this was a fact that irritated mostly administrators preparing their PowerPoint presentations.

But then the latest recession hit. How sad that the last time Penn State managed to eke out a piddling increase in state funding and thereby head off an even higher tuition hike, most serious discussion over the future of higher education here was hijacked by a prudish crusader in the legislature named John Lawless.

We as the media were not entirely blameless there, whipping up the dust as we did around the "Sex Faire" scandal. But those collective actions obscured the last time during recent memory when the university had a real chance of getting through to lawmakers.

Now, this state and most of its 49 siblings and one step-district find themselves a community of impoverished families with too many mouths to feed and not enough pennies in the treasury to do it.

Well-meaning lobbyists -- from Penn State President Graham Spanier and high-profile alums right down to student constituents -- are not going to get the kind of ear time, coming from the comparatively verdant valley of Penn State.

After all, there are needier line items at times like these.

Tuition skyrockets and the number of applicants still goes up.

But I'm afraid that by the time I have children old enough to send in their own Penn State applications -- in whatever high-tech method we'll be using by then -- the "State" in our name will be a cute vestige of the past, perhaps something for the Lion Ambassadors to explain.

"The name of your future alma mater originated during the days when the school received an annual appropriation from Harrisburg," they'll say, walking backwards.

I was born and raised in Pennsylvania. I hope to live and work, and even (gasp!) pay taxes, in this state. I don't want Penn State to become a private university.

Preventing that from happening is going to take a bit of patience and persistence.

Remember Gov. Ed Rendell's pledge when he visited campus last September?

After acknowledging that the state's financial situation is pretty bleak at the moment, he said of state-related schools like Penn State: "During my time as governor, I want to commit to you that we are going to build the subsidy, so that we can lower tuition."

Actually lowering tuition might be a pipe dream at this point, but reining in the huge yearly increases is a manageable goal.

For our university to remain -- or return to being -- a place that Pennsylvanians from all socioeconomic backgrounds can aspire to, the state is going to have to return soon to the level of funding we once knew and then continue with appropriate increases each year.

We need to restore the hope that all qualified students from this state and elsewhere can aspire to get the kind of amazing education that is possible here.