These are dark days for entities that are funded via the Georgia state budget, and they may well be about to get darker. That's especially true for the state's colleges and universities.

According to various reports, The University System of Georgia may be expected to chop another $300 million from its budget, which would come on top of the $265 million that Gov. Sonny Perdue has already proposed to cut for Fiscal Year 2011.

On the local level, that would translate to a decrease of more than $14 million from the Kennesaw State University budget and a cut of $6.4 million from the Southern Polytechnic State University budget.

Said KSU President Dr. Dan Papp, "A reduction of this magnitude would be an immense setback, even a disaster, for the university."

And added SPSU Vice President of Student Affairs Dr. Zvi Szafran, "This additional cut will decimate our budget and decimate our ability to operate."

There's no question that such cuts would hurt. Papp says they could mean a cap or cutback in student enrollment, reductions in faculty and staff, and the elimination of classes and programs.

Likewise, Szafran said SPSU would have to eliminate 20 full-time faculty members and nearly all part-time faculty. That, in turn, would mean fewer classes available, more crowded classrooms and a less varied curriculum, he said.

We have no objections to our institutions of higher learning being forced to do their share of belt-tightening, just like everyone else in times like these. Considering how K-12 funding from the state has been slashed, it is to be expected that higher ed should also be forced to share the pain.

Such "medicine" is unpleasant, but goes down easier if it is understood that all are having to take it. However, the state budget continues to be laden with pork ripe for the butcher.

For starters, the supposedly tight budget still includes $9 million to expand a horse-show complex at the state fairgrounds and agricenter in Perry - hometown of Gov. Sonny Perdue. That would come on top of $17 million the state has already spent for the facility.

There's also $67 million included for the OneGeorgia program, which this year steered $598,000 from its reserves to help fund the move of Little League Baseball Inc. to Warner Robins, near Perry in an effort to create five jobs.

And then, even though the University System is looking at a budgetary Armageddon, Perdue, a veterinarian by profession, is proposing to spend $7.7 million to design a new veterinary medical facility at his alma mater, the University of Georgia.

It's as if the state's left hand doesn't know what its right hand is doing, budget-wise. Butchering with one hand and showering money with the other.

Georgia's colleges and universities historically have been one of the state's top budget priorities. Now, with the economy in the worst straights in decades, there should be no dispute that they will have to share in the pain being faced by other state-funded programs. Yet, there also is no question that protecting higher-ed deserves a higher priority than funding horse shows and Little League baseball.

Gov. Perdue and House Speaker David Ralston in recent days have downplayed talk of such draconian cuts in the University System, and we hope their reassurances prove correct.