One week ago today, Fresno State President John Welty explained to the university community that, unless Californians vote to raise taxes on themselves come November, Fresno State would have to cut $11 million from its budget. From this would come tuition increases, layoffs, class reductions, enrollment limits and more.

“For the last three-and-a-half years,” Welty said to a crowd of nearly 200 at the Satellite Student Union, “our ability to meet the needs of students and our region has been stretching and stretching ”” nearly to the breaking point ”” because our elected officials have abandoned the state’s commitment to higher education.”

The proof is in the pudding, as it is said. Fresno State has reached its breaking point: In a scant 10 years, tuition has increased from $1,572 to $5,970, faculty and staff pay rates have been stagnant since 2007 and the school has shed 300 jobs since 2008.

The common complaint is that the state is reneging on its responsibility to provide affordable higher education to the citizens of California. It is deigned a gross mismanagement of state funds ”” Welty called it a “tragedy” and a “travesty” ”” that more is spent on the prison system than on public higher education.

One is tempted to say that if Californians did not get into the nasty habit of so frequently breaking the law, the cost of prisons need not be so high.

Nevertheless, it is clear that Welty and his acolytes are peddling the line that the school’s financial troubles are no fault of their own, but that the fault lies with the state.

It is not quite so simple, however.

The economy has yet to rebound. Unemployment remains stubbornly high: 8.5 percent remain unemployed nationwide, while the number is 11.3 percent in California. Underemployment ”” unemployment plus those with part-time jobs and those who have stopped looking for work ”” is at a depressing 18 percent. Tons of those in the private economy have felt the undiscriminating nature of the invisible hand, including those in the newspaper-making business.

It is reasonable to expect that all sectors of the public economy would take hits, including higher education, especially while California is mired in the middle of a $13 billion deficit.

The real problem with Fresno State is illustrated by this quote from Provost William Covino: “Just meeting payroll exhausts the base budget.”

If a private company announced that simply paying its employees exhausted its base budget, analysts would surmise that bankruptcy would likely be the best option. When it happens to a public university, the citizens of California are blamed.

Fresno State cannot continue stretching its budget to nearly the breaking point with quick fixes. It cannot continue to trot out the same old solutions, from tuition increases, layoffs, to class reductions. They obviously have not worked.

Fresno State needs to completely rethink how it does education. It needs some bold ideas. It needs to restructure the university.

But based on Welty’s reaction to the news of possible cuts, color us skeptical.