Public education is getting harder to come by, despite the increasing tuition:

Demand to get into public universities in Minnesota appears to be up again this year, with officials at several schools reporting near-record numbers of applications to enter school this fall.

"We are up again, significantly," said Gina Monson, director of admissions at Minnesota State University Moorhead. "Applicants are up 18 to 20 percent."

At St. Cloud State University, applications are up almost 9 percent. At the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, freshman applications are up about 5 percent. More than 17,150 had been received by last week.

Reasons cited are increasing HS class sizes and a slow economy at least for unskilled workers. Multiple applications are up -- the ratio of admissions to enrollments is rising, indicating students are getting more acceptances and shopping more. But,

Crowded freshman classes have created problems for late-applying students at some state universities. Some schools have established priority deadlines for applications for the first time in the past couple of years.

At Minnesota State University Mankato, which has a spring deadline for applications for the coming fall, some students who applied after the deadline last year were not admitted for space reasons, said admission director Walt Wolff.

Those students typically had applied to other colleges, then received their financial aid packages in the spring and realized that they couldn't afford the cost. But by the time they applied to Mankato, the deadline was past and the class was full.

Same is true at Moorhead and St. Cloud.