PRESIDENT Asif Zardari, while addressing a meeting of the vice-chancellors of the country at the Presidency, has told them that while raising expenditure on education to seven percent of GDP, spending on higher education would also be raised 20 percent in the next five years. This works out to only 4 percent a year, which would not really meet the needs of the universities. This is the danger of using a figure-any figure-when setting spending goals. This is so because the government only commits itself to the figure, not the concept. The seven-percent goal was set in the belief that this would meet the universities needs for the future, but it took into account neither the expansion of universities, with a corresponding increase in their demand for money, as well as the global contraction, as well as the increase in prices that made once-reasonable prices risible. The universities need to have their goals re-examined, and the funding be tied to the achievement of these goals, and as much money made available as is needed. This is because of President Zardaris other observation, that the universities are the nations assets in the ideological struggle. Policymakers must remember that higher education means educating the teachers, even the primary teachers, of tomorrow. Because of this, the ideological future of the entire educational system, and thus of the country, lies with the universities. Therefore, money spent on the universities is actually money spent on guarding the ideological frontiers of Pakistan. However, it is also to be assumed that what the President said about spending on education is not like what he said about Balochistan, and what he told Parliament itself about the 17th Amendment, two instances of him not telling the truth. This is a valid assumption, because education spending is locked in very early, and the targets he mentioned are donor-recommended goals which will be followed.