Do more, spend less. That harsh imperative confronts leaders in a variety of institutions today — none more than those at Minnesota’s colleges and universities, both public and private. Tight money is erasing many line items deemed nonessential from higher education budgets.

But remaining and in many places flourishing despite several rounds of retrenchment is community involvement, dubbed “service learning” when it emerged as a national collegiate trend a quarter-century ago. Evidently, and to their credit, educators have decided that mingling practical local problem-solving with higher learning is more than a fad. In fact, it might be a remedy for some of the ills of tight money, on and off campus.

That was the testimony of many of the 10 Minnesota college presidents who gathered for conversation during last week’s annual summit of Minnesota Campus Compact. The Compact is a 25-year-old organization that binds some 47 Minnesota colleges and universities with a pledge to bring campus resources to bear on improving the lot of their neighboring communities…

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