In her January State of the State address, Gov. Janet Napolitano called for doubling the number of college graduates by 2020 and paying the tuition for students who graduate high school with a B average. How fast can you say grade inflation?

What’s important to note, however, is there isn’t any reason to think Arizona needs such a doubling. In the Carnegie Foundation’s publication Change, Paul Barton wrote the notion that the United States has a dire need for an ever increasing number of college graduates is a myth.

"Confusion about the demand for college graduates runs throughout discussions of national workforce needs," Barton wrote.

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, 29 percent of all jobs actually required a degree in 2004. But the U.S. Department of Education’s National Education Longitudinal Study reports 40 percent of its sample attained a two- or four-year degree or higher. Many people with college degrees have jobs that do not require them.

Of course, Arizona’s universities can and should do more to improve their abysmal graduation rates. The National Center for Education Statistics lists the University of Arizona’s four-year graduation rate at 30 percent, Arizona State’s is 28 percent and Northern Arizona University’s is 27 percent. The six-year graduation rates for these three schools stand at 56 percent, 56 percent and 47 percent respectively.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like Arizona taxpayers are already subsidizing a good deal more than we should.

The crisis in our public universities is effectiveness, not affordability.

Universities need focus, reform, and competition, not new subsidies and a continued lack of accountability. Massive new taxpayer subsidies will simply turn today’s farce into tomorrow’s tragedy.

Contact Matthew Ladner, vice president of research at the Goldwater Institute, at mladner@goldwaterinstitute.org.