When property taxes soar in Minnesota, government usually comes up with some kind of property tax relief bill. In fact, some form of permanent relief is built into Minnesota law.

When the state came into a budget surplus in 1999 and 2000, Gov. Jesse Ventura, Republicans and Democrats joined together to provide all taxpayers a sales tax rebate, as relief from an increase in the 6.5 percent sales tax imposed on them a few years earlier.

But when Minnesota’s public college students “chose” to continue their education during Minnesota’s $4.5 billion budget crisis, and paid tuition increases of 14 percent, 14 percent, six percent and eight percent in four years, they got no relief.

Almost four years later, still no relief.

Of course, the tuition increases were necessary to help balance the state budget during that tough 2003 budget year, but now, according to latest estimates, the state may have a $1 billion surplus.

An in-depth story on the subject of tuition increases published in Friday’s Free Press told a tale of a vicious cycle: Higher tuition inevitably causes students to take on more debt. Minnesota State University students have increased their debt by nearly 50 percent in the alternative loan program, going from borrowing a total of $4.6 million to $7 million in just the last year. Student loans are up more than 13 percent to $5.2 million at South Central College.

College students now deserve some relief.

Legislators appear willing to do so, according to the same Free Press report. When The Free Press asked what an appropriate level of tuition increase should be, several candidates, including incumbents, responded it should be no higher than the general level of inflation: currently about 3.6 percent.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has proposed providing free tuition to students in the top 25 percent of their class. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike Hatch has proposed rolling back tuition rates to 2002.

So far, Hatch’s plan seems most equitable and consistent with what Minnesota government has done in the past to help groups that have been bearing an unfair burden of tax or fee increases.

Almost all candidates running for the Legislature espouse the value of a college education and how such investment by a state returns many more dollars in taxes than the initial expense.

It’s time the state’s public college students got some relief.