College affordability is a problem that should be ripe for bipartisan cooperation, in Ohio and nationally. Almost all Americans need higher education, yet the cost of college is out of reach of most students and families unless they take out thousands of dollars in loans.

State subsidies to public universities have risen nominally in recent decades, but not enough to keep pace with colossal growth in college costs. Progressives rightly accuse Ohio’s anti-spending government of underfunding higher education, while Republican officials, also properly, assail state universities for failing to control tuition growth.

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This year, Gov. John Kasich named a task force to study how public universities and colleges can contain costs, warning that schools that didn’t cooperate would face cuts in state aid. The task force report, issued last week, included cost-cutting suggestions such as privatizing university services, sharing services across campuses, and purchasing goods in bulk. 

Yet the report missed its opportunity to pitch truly creative ideas for reforming higher education. And it fails, or refuses, to recognize what should be the state’s central role in making college affordable.

Governor Kasich deserves credit for trying to rein in irresponsible spending by higher education institutions. In the past decades, university cost growth has outpaced the growth of state funding, primarily in administrative and other nonacademic areas. 

Administrative costs now account for most spending by colleges. It’s especially bad in Ohio, where tuition at public colleges and universities is 15 percent higher than the national average, and students graduate with more debt than in the nation as a whole.

Limiting the growth of highly paid administrative positions is one of the most important steps universities and colleges can take to reduce costs. Yet the state’s report barely addresses these concerns.

Not every student needs a traditional campus experience to gain the education he or she needs to get a high-skill job. Private companies increasingly are operating “boot camps” in major cities to train students to become computer programmers in a few weeks or months. Such employers are taking advantage of higher education’s adherence to traditional ways to offer students more-affordable career training, with a high return on investment.

Under an initiative President Obama announced this year, federal agencies are working with vocational institutions to offer rigorous career programs that are competitive with those offered by colleges and universities. Republican leaders, notably presidential hopeful Marco Rubio, propose plans to integrate such efforts  into the higher-education landscape. 

These changes would create legitimate alternatives to college and help drive down the costs of traditional college programs. But the need to re-imagine post-secondary programs doesn’t relieve state government of its duty to ensure that higher education remains within the reach of all Ohioans. 

Administrative bloat and inefficiencies are to blame for unprecedented college costs, but so is the state’s refusal to fund public higher education appropriately. Such funding remains below where it was before the Great Recession, while the wealthiest Ohioans have gotten an array of state tax cuts. Such negligence harms the state’s young people and economic growth.

For now, college is still the most reliable path to economic mobility and a decent standard of living for most Ohioans and Americans. Whatever else needs to be changed in the state’s higher education system, elected officials must accept that reality and act accordingly.

First Published October 15, 2015, 4:00 a.m.