The clock is ticking, Harrisburg. Penn State is losing about $100,000 each month while lawmakers dawdle in the state capitol, still failing to finalize an appropriation for Penn State -- and the rest of the Department of Education budget -- for this year.

While the House has already approved the $306.5 million appropriation, a 5 percent cut for Penn State from last year, the bill awaits the Senate's approval and Gov. Ed Rendell's signature.

Typically, this wouldn't be a problem and Penn State would have received its money during the summer.

But state Sen. Jake Corman, R-Bellefonte, recently said the Senate won't send a revised appropriation bill back to the House until late November. And Lord knows how long it might take the House to take up the revised bill.

If Corman's estimate comes true, the university will have lost more than half a million dollars by the end of the Fall Semester, simply because it is losing interest normally gained on its reserve funds -- funds that are currently being used to pay bills because the state money hasn't arrived yet. This has been going on since July 1, the start of the current fiscal year.

Politicians can talk until they're blue in the face about higher education being an important part of Pennsylvania, and that the so-called "brain drain" is a huge problem.

But how can they say it's so important when Penn State ranks at the bottom of the Big Ten when comparing expenditures per student?

If anything, current college students, including myself, are more likely to leave Pennsylvania, simply because they are resentful of the state's inaction on higher education issues and their ever-increasing tuition.

Here's an example of this lack of support for higher education. Rendell spoke at the September 2002 kickoff gubernatorial debate at Eisenhower Auditorium. State appropriations and job retention were the hot topics at the debate. Rendell said at the event that state funding for higher education was too low and that as governor, he would slowly build up state subsidies.

Instead, once elected, Rendell did the opposite and made two mid-year cuts of $3.2 million each, or 1 percent of the university's appropriation each time.

Penn State could look on the bright side: It doesn't even have its appropriation for this year from which Rendell could make cuts.

Currently, lawmakers seem to be too busy working on bills that actually hurt students' wallets, like the measure that could penalize Penn State -- and consequently students -- for providing low-cost fitness passes, which, allegedly, provides unfair competition for private, in-town gyms.

The fact that Penn State is missing a $300 million-plus chunk of its funding is a more important issue.

Rendell and lawmakers have been saying for months that Pennsylvanians need to tighten their belts in the "dire economy" -- a phrase we've heard 1,000 times. It's the same old story from lawmakers. The economy is bad; everyone, including universities, must sacrifice state money and find ways to cut costs internally, blah, blah, blah.

And Penn State has made an effort. A tuition task force at the university identified $11.4 million in budget reductions, saving each full-time student about $200 in tuition costs.

But what's going to make the economy turn around if Pennsylvania's largest university is losing money daily because lawmakers won't finalize its appropriation?

All of this comes on the heels of an Allentown Morning Call article. The story reported that the House Republican and Democratic leaders each spent on average $5,000 of taxpayers' money each month on food -- mostly banquets and catered affairs -- for the past two years through a fund used to operate the Democrat and Republican party caucuses.

To put this in perspective, what Penn State loses every three days because of the funding holdup is about a month's worth of catered affairs purchased by Speaker John Perzel and Minority Leader Bill DeWeese.

In fact, Perzel spent $2.8 million in taxpayer money in the same two years on campaign-related activities, including commercials and telemarketers, the Morning Call reported, simply because the efforts are classified as public services and thus do not violate state election laws. Too bad that money couldn't have gone toward partially restoring one of those mid-year cuts Rendell had to make for Penn State.

Isn't it funny that lawmakers are asking us to scrimp when they don't have a problem plopping down taxpayers' money for $941 restaurant bills and thousand-dollar commercials?

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. Penn State keeps on losing money.

The clock is also ticking toward the next state election, 2004, when all 203 House seats and half of the Senate seats will be up for grabs. We need to fill them with lawmakers who will help Penn State, not constantly decrease its funding while expecting us to look the other way while they squander taxpayers' money.