At colleges in California and across the country, students gathered early this month to protest budget cuts targeting financial support for higher education. The student protests were aimed at government funding cuts to higher education that are making a college degree increasingly unaffordable for millions of Americans.

While the students were on target highlighting the prohibitive costs of a college education, their protests should have targeted colleges and universities, financially strapped state governments and taxpayers.

Health care costs that have been rising faster than inflation for more than a decade have become a part of the national debate over health care reform, though cost control in the legislation pending in Congress is highly suspect.

Nearly everyone realizes that health care costs have been spiraling out of control for years. What fewer people realize is that the cost of higher education has been rising at nearly double the rate of health care over the past decade.

A graph in a recent edition of BusinessWeek magazine showed that since 2000, college tuition and fees have risen 92 percent, while health care costs have increased 49 percent over the same period. In the same decade, the price of a new car has remained essentially flat.

In some states, most notably California, budget shortfalls have caused a reduction in taxpayer support for higher education. At some colleges, course offerings and staffing have been trimmed to adjust to the reduced state funding. Some colleges even have implemented wage freezes, and others have cut pay or forced staff to take extra furlough days to trim costs.

Still, the student anger should be directed at colleges and universities for allowing the costs that students must bear to increase so much faster than inflation.

But with most colleges receiving many more student applications than they can accept, there has been no incentive to trim costs — until now, apparently. Most colleges and universities have not had to care about controlling costs because demand exceeded supply.

Some of the cost-cutting measures now taking place should have been happening years, or decades, ago.

Among colleges and universities, there has been something of an arms race, with schools competing against one another for students by building ever-more-luxurious dormatories and state-of-the-art sports amenities. There was little evidence that their customers were concerned about costs, even when those costs were a burden to students and, oftentimes, their parents.

But in recent years, many more students are looking at getting the most bang for their college buck and that has shifted the spotlight to less-expensive colleges and universities as well as community colleges, which are increasingly seen as a financially prudent gateway to a four-year degree.

Some colleges have been getting attention by offering a degree program in three years, saving students tens of thousands of dollars. And there also has been some talk of creating "no-frills" colleges, without fancy dormatories, student centers and athletic teams, but with significantly lower tuition rates.

Students across the country should continue to put pressure on colleges and universities to bring down costs. More taxpayer support to the schools only discourages cost control.

One effective way for that message to be sent is for high school students to resist applying to the high-cost institutions and instead apply to lower-costs universities and colleges, or plan to start their higher-education studies at a community college, with the idea of transferring to a four-year institution after a year or two.

Colleges and universities seem to be getting the message, but efforts to cut costs are only beginning.

Making higher education accessible to more young people is important to the future of the United States in an increasingly competitive world. But that goal should not be achieved by forcing taxpayers to subsidize colleges and universities that are unable or unwilling to control their costs.

Student protests over the high cost of a college education should continue, but the protests should target the source of the problem, not government and taxpayers.