Ted Strickland wants Ohio to boost its per-capita income. The state may not soon reach the heights of the 1960s, when it ranked among the wealthiest states. The governor has something more realistic in mind, aiming, say, for the national average. He makes a statistically sound argument: Workers with college degrees earn almost twice the amount of those with nothing more than high school diplomas ($57,000 vs. $31,000 in 2006). Add to the number of college graduates, and the average income in Ohio will increase. Right?

Over the weekend, David Giffels and David Knox, two Beacon Journal staff writers, explained much of the complexity in fulfilling this task. Giffels explored the affordability challenge. Ohio aggravates the financial burden in achieving a college degree. Thirty-eight states invest more in each student attending a public college or university. That translates into relatively higher tuition rates.

Giffels told the stories of many Ohioans borrowing money to pay for their college education, and working to make ends meet. Working your way through school hardly rates as unusual. Many people in past generations have done so. Striking is the amount of work required. By the measure of the minimum wage, the number of hours has tripled since the 1970s, from 23 hours to 72 hours per week.

All of that work hardly covers the increased cost of tuition. More college students, and their families, borrow in greater amounts, the typical Ohio graduate in 2006 owing $19,646, a doubling of the debt size during the past decade. The debt burden ranks 14th highest among the states. It narrows the options for graduates when they enter the job market.

An Ohio determined to add college graduates must make college more affordable and accessible. Eric Fingerhut, the chancellor of the Board of Regents, recently outlined ways to do so in his 10-year strategic plan for higher education. Among other things, he has proposed restructuring the system to take better advantage of the many colleges and universities, opening more doors to a four-year degree, and thus lowering the expense.

That makes sense. At the same time, Ohio must contend with a discouraging trend: Since the late 1980s, the state share of college tuition has fallen from roughly two-thirds to one-third. The current tuition freeze helps. It must be followed by a steady and substantial state investment.

Ohioans would do well to note the reporting of David Knox: In this highly competitive global economy, a college degree isn't the guarantee of the past. The median pay of young Ohioans with four-year diplomas has declined in recent years. (Of course, it remains true that having a college degree is better than the alternative.) The lesson is that having more college graduates within the state's borders isn't an economic plan on its own. It is a necessary part.

If Ohio must invest in its people, so must the state plow resources into public works, bridges, roads, water lines and the like. Most critical is investing in higher education in another way, adding to the intellectual clout of areas of strength, such as polymer sciences and engineering at the University of Akron, leveraging research dollars to generate the innovations that are this country's economic advantage.

To borrow from Chancellor Fingerhut, Ohio must develop world-class centers of excellence, accumulating the base of knowledge and ideas, whether in manufacturing or services, that holds the promise of sustaining and advancing the middle class.