COEUR d'ALENE — A statewide signature drive launched last Tuesday aims at lowering tuition at state colleges and universities through increasing Idaho's cigarette tax.

The drive is sponsored by the group StopTuitionHikes.com, which recently completed ballot language review and titling through the Idaho Attorney General's office. Now it will begin to gather signatures in hopes that its ballot initiative — to substantially lower tuition rates at public universities and college — will be the first to appear on a statewide ballot since 2006.

"This might be the single most important thing to happen in Idaho in a long time," said Bill Moran, spokesman for the group. "We have a big college affordability problem. Year after year the Legislature makes cuts to higher education, and universities have to raise tuition because of it. But people don't get mad at their legislators, they get mad at the colleges and it's created a downward spiral in this state."

According to a press release from the group, the ballot initiative aims to do the following:

1.) Reduce tuition rates at state universities and colleges by 22 percent through an across-the-board scholarship for all in-state undergraduate students.

2.) Provide an additional $7 million to the state's community college system, "as these institutions serve as a vital pathway to education for people in Idaho's most remote country terrain."

3.) Provide an additional $7 million to Idaho's statewide tobacco use prevention and cessation programs.

The three initiative goals can be accomplished, Moran said, by increasing Idaho's cigarette tax from 57 cents a pack to $2.07 per pack. An additional 12 percent tax would be added to the wholesale price of other tobacco products, he ad

Idaho last raised its tax on cigarettes in 2003, and Moran said the prices remain the lowest in the region. He added tuition at higher education campuses in Idaho has tripled since 2000.

"We're forfeiting the American Dream so we can have the lowest cigarette prices in the region and it's got to stop," Moran said. "In our state we've basically decided that our citizens can die quickly, cheaply, and efficiently from tobacco. But heaven forbid they get an affordable education." 

To illustrate the lack of affordable college education in Idaho, Moran said half of students who graduate high school do not go on to college, with the majority citing cost as their primary barrier. Four of 10 students do go on to college, but are unable to finish their degree because they run out of funds, according to Moran.

"And students who do get a degree enter low-wage jobs and have to try to pay off high student loans," he added.

Moran also stated two-thirds of the student debt in Idaho occurred over the last 7 years, meaning most of those students or graduates are under 30 years old.

"So we don't even know how much damage we've done to the economy yet," Moran said.

The group will begin signature drives at North Idaho colleges this fall and continue them throughout the winter. In the spring, it plans on increasing its efforts by going to cities across the state and gathering signatures from supportive residents.