Perhaps it's not the best on-message news that state universities were among the biggest-spending lobbyists this legislative session. After all, President Barack Obama himself singled out soaring college costs during the State of the Union, and excessive lobbying seems out of touch with the need to rein in university spending.

Even before the president's proposal, New Mexico's Higher Education Secretary Jose Garcia had rolled out a new higher-education funding formula that gets at the heart of Obama's reform -- graduating students more quickly. Both the president and the state want to push colleges and universities to do a better job graduating students. It's perhaps because of the proposed formula that both The University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University made such a splash this session, spending thousands on legislative receptions. Also big spenders were Eastern New Mexico University and the association for community colleges. Understandable, but perhaps a better message in tight times would be smaller parties.

What all college presidents and administrators know is that New Mexico is trying to get more bang for its higher-education buck. Garcia wants universities and colleges that help students graduate faster to be rewarded. Similarly, colleges with a high dropout rate or a longer path to graduation (eight years, say, instead of five) will be dinged financially in their state funding. While we support the idea in principle, the formula change comes after several years of harsh budget cuts at our state's colleges and universities. To penalize schools beginning now is the wrong approach, especially because state budget cuts often are passed along to parents and students in the form of increased tuition and fees. Institute the formula, give universities a chance to perform, and then penalize the slackers.

Adding to uncertainty in higher education in New Mexico is what will happen to the prized lottery scholarships. In New Mexico, students who graduate from in-state high schools and maintain a 2.5 grade-point average can attend public higher education with their tuition paid because of those scholarships. With fewer people buying lottery tickets and tuition costs increasing, lottery officials are worried that they won't be able to cover all college students come 2014. That will need a fix, along with other necessary changes in higher education.

What must happen next is simple to understand and hard to execute.

Colleges, both in New Mexico and nationally, must get a handle on rising costs. Whether because of fat administrative perks, too much construction, excessive athletic spending, decreasing state support of higher education -- name your cause -- tuition costs at the nation's universities are estimated to have tripled since the 1980s, rising faster than inflation and family income both.

At the same time, students are staying in college longer. They need to graduate more quickly. Certainly, many of New Mexico's college students are working their way through school, a task that stretches the school years. Others, though, are not ready for college and must spend a year in remedial courses, or simply drift without taking the proper courses. All those years in school can add up to tens of thousands of dollars of debt upon graduation. Nationally, student debt has more than doubled from $41 billion to $103 billion. That's a weight around the necks of our country's young creative class.

Obama, in his proposal, requires colleges that receive federal aid to create "a scoreboard." On the board would be actual costs, graduation rates and potential earnings for graduates. He would set up a $1 billion fund to offer grants to those states that improve graduation rates and costs. He also wants to expand loans and work-study programs to more than $10 billion, up from the $2.7 billion now spent. There's a stick in his plan: Colleges that don't provide good value would lose money to those that do reduce costs and improve graduation rates.

We appreciate that New Mexico's higher-education leaders, rather than complaining about the new focus on cost controls and better graduation rates, are working to keep college affordable and to graduate students on time. More must be done, of course, to keep college both accessible and affordable. The new higher-education funding formula is a step in the right direction, and so is the president's emphasis on value for money spent.