Jul. 24--We find ourselves writing often these days about the dilemmas of the state budget, and about Durham Technical Community College.

That may be because we realize the harsh realities of our budget situation -- and the deep importance of Durham Tech, an importance ironically accented by the very economic downturn that is devastating our state's financial picture.

The latest example of this grim convergence came this week with the revelation that the cost of continuing education courses at our highly acclaimed local community college is going up substantially.

These courses are not just frills, by any means, or grist for those for whom lifelong learning is something of a hobby. We applaud that inclination, but we truly value the courses that help people upgrade their job skills.

In good times, that upgrading often is an example of ambition and zealousness, aimed at a march up the economic scale and toward greater personal fulfillment in that 9-to-5 portion of our lives.

But when the economy goes south, those efforts to upgrade job skills may be vital to just hanging on to the opportunity to compete for a job with a living wage and decent benefits. As several Durham Tech students told The Herald-Sun's Neil Offen earlier this week, it is that opportunity to affordably boost their skills that gives them hope when their old jobs have been phased our or eliminated in the recession or its aftershocks.

So those folks now will face costs sometimes triple what they had been to boost their chances for a decent job.

Granted, if they succeed, the investment will be repaid many times over. And as some of them noted, the cost is not prohibitive -- but it is yet another financial burden to balance against other costs made difficult by plummeting incomes.

But the financial stress is in the here and now. It's just another example of how our accommodation to the financial crisis we face is not just an academic exercise, but a series of decisions that are exacting real pain on real people -- often, our friends and our neighbors.

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