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Let's start with a simple, startling fact: Full-time enrollment at the campuses of the Community College of Baltimore County is up 22 percent this year over last.

Let that sink in, then take note that as part of Gov. Martin O'Malley's budget belt-tightening, state aid to CCBC is to be cut by $1.8 million.

What's wrong with this picture?

It's a truism that when times get tough, business picks up at community colleges. Their tuition rates are a bargain relative to most four-year institutions, so parents facing pay freezes, furloughs and layoffs turn to community colleges as an affordable alternative.

Meanwhile, people long out of high school are enrolling there because they are looking for work and need to polish their skill set -- or get a new one -- to get a leg up in the job market.

It's true that things are tough all over.

Aid to Baltimore County as a whole will be cut by more than $23 million -- second only to Baltimore City, which faces $35 million in cuts.

The county will also lose 90 percent of the state aid that pays for highway construction and maintenance. Cuts are coming in state aid to police and the health department. Furloughs and layoffs of state employees also loom.

County officials haven't said how they will digest the cuts at CCBC.

But we can only hope -- and express concern -- that the cuts won't result in a cutback of courses that can help people find work, nor result in any increase in tuition that might limit access to people who need it. Our community colleges have long proven to be an engine of economic growth. Now, in particular, is not a time to curtail that investment.

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