Shenzhen, China was a village of 2000 people 23 years ago. Today, its population is 7 million and growing fast. The city houses hundreds of factories making consumer products for world markets. In the last few years, it has sprouted award-winning skyscrapers to go along with the grimy factories and dormitories of earlier days.

Just west of Shenzhen are the even newer cities of Dongguan and Shende, farming communities 2 decades ago that now have populations of more than 7 million. Factory jobs from Shenzhen are moving west, following cheaper labor and leaving behind higher skilled office jobs.

Over the next 20 years, 500 million new workers will enter China's labor force. That means today's low wages will continue into the foreseeable future. More manufacturing jobs will move to China, not just from the United States, but also from Southeast Asian countries like the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand.

China puts economic development ahead of all other priorities except security. And, it must, in order to provide jobs for the hundreds of millions of workers it will need to employ. Consequently, it has sent 3 million students to study abroad and is graduating 500,000 engineering and science students a year. That is a tiny fraction of its 1.3 billion people, but a huge number for a developing country.

I've just returned from 2 weeks in China, meeting with businesspeople, government officials and university professors. Their enthusiasm for China's future is unbounded. They pointed out that research and development activities are moving to China, in addition to manufacturing jobs. That's because of China's growing investment in education. There are now millions of well-educated Chinese, often with degrees from American or European universities, with a good command of English, ready to work in high tech research facilities.

India, China's neighbor to the south, also has superb higher education institutions. It is producing hundreds of thousands of engineering and science graduates a year from excellent technical and medical universities. There are 150 million Indians who speak English as their first language, making them extremely valuable to multinational companies who pay them far less than they would pay Americans with similar credentials. These are smart, competent young people who want to work hard for a better life for themselves and their families.

All this is not to say that we should revert to protectionism. Quite the contrary. What we need to realize is that to remain the strongest economy in the world and to stay at the top of our competitive form, we need to value higher education far more than we do today. Just look at what has happened to higher education in Colorado over the last year. It has been subjected to massive budget cuts, thanks to the ideologues who run our state government and value tax cuts more than education. How shortsighted!

The only way America will stay strong economically is to educate our kids, to make sure that we are the most technologically capable, innovative and creative society in the world. Across the country, we have reduced funding for higher education. Yet, at the same time, we bemoan the loss of jobs to countries that are hungrier than we are. To countries that commit their far more limited resources to those endeavors that will provide opportunity to their people. Higher education is high on this list.

Oh yes, we have lots of rhetoric about leaving no child behind, about making sure that higher education is available to all qualified students. But we don't put our bucks behind our words. We prefer to burden students with loans rather than granting them scholarships. We cut state funding, forcing increased tuition, making higher education unreachable for many bright and capable students.

Rather than protectionist posturing, rather than blaming China or India for stealing our jobs, maybe it's time for us to look at our own priorities. Maybe it's time for us to tell our legislators that we want one of the best higher education systems in the world, right here in Colorado, not some embarrassing shell that ensures our kids are unprepared for their future in a highly competitive global economy.