When three ships cross paths in the night without navigators aboard it’s pretty certain there’s going to be a bump, if not a maritime disaster. That’s the way it is with news stories as well — they steam along past the reader’s eyes with nary a sign that they might be on a collision course.

Such is the case with recent news involving state colleges.

One story, on soaring enrollment everywhere, was definitely positive. Perhaps the insistent message that more than high school is necessary in today’s marketplace is sinking in although, honestly, the fact there is not much of a job market also has to be acting as a booster rocket for surging interest in classrooms. Fortunately, much higher education tuition in Georgia comes from the lottery profits and those, in bad economic times, also leap skyward.

Another item looks good on the surface but may disguise an unrepaired leak: According to a report from the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement almost two-thirds (65 percent) of recent high-school graduates are now moving onward and upward to college.

That’s very encouraging even though the goal likely should still be 100 percent. It is certainly far more than a decade or two ago.

STILL, AND DESPITE Georgia having a workforce with skill levels considered to be the best there is overall nationally, what’s beneath the surface is worrisome.

For example, the Floyd County School System’s graduation rate last year was a record high 77.5 percent. However, translate that into actual young people and it means 22½ out of every 100 never complete high school.

Based on past enrollment rates from the county system in “post-secondary” education, meaning a university system, private or technical college of 70.9 percent in the 2000-07 timeframe, that indicates of the 77½ who got diplomas roughly 52 (two-thirds) of every 100 new graduates pursued a higher level of skills. It also means some 48 out of 100 stopped short of gaining the talents likely needed to provide them, and their children, with upward mobility either by dropping out or not continuing beyond high school.

The Rome School System, by the way, with a slightly higher go-on-to-college pace of 74.7 percent, would only be about one person out of a hundred better.

Moreover, even though any additional education has to be considered better than none, there’s an added disturbing number. Going to college doesn’t mean getting a degree. Indeed, it appears that most don’t finish based on the state’s data.

For instance, from the Floyd system in 2000-07 some 2,958 went on to college but that only resulted in 1,338 receiving degrees. For the smaller Rome system the numbers were 1,515 students netting only 761 degrees.

ASSUMING that trend continues, it keeps another third of local young people from becoming fully educated. Still, such a well-educated pace of around 30-plus percent is way better than what the last census showed — only 15.8 percent of the local workforce having a college degree. That’s assuming those younger folks stick around home, of course. Still, given what’s already happened in the shifting workplace and what’s likely to occur, will even that be sufficient for local prosperity?

As for the news that’s a foghorn warning of an imminent collision, that would be the budget cuts being additionally imposed by the state on higher education. On top of last year’s reductions, the target is 4 percent and it could go to 8 percent.

This means that just as young people (and those older and in need of retraining) are pouring into the classrooms there’s going to be less there for them than in the past. By the way, don’t figure private colleges are exempt just because they aren’t tax-supported. The economic pounding is hitting their budgets as well as endowments bring in less revenues and at least some past generous donors feel themselves comparatively impoverished at the moment.

The state’s cuts are worse, of course, because they are applied across-the-board instead of selectively. If there’s more demand for higher education, and more customers, it should get more funding as the heart of any future economic revival, not less.

WHILE SOME of these forced choices in budget reduc-tions might be considered calculated risks (such as less campus security), they will shortly start sawing through bone and amputating excellence. For example, at the University of Georgia the cuts at the 4 percent level are expected to knock off 143 positions — faculty, graduate assistants, staff. At double that, or a cut of 8 percent, this would mean 582 have to go.

This, even as tuition goes up constantly, means the incoming flood of students will be getting less — larger classes, fewer sections translating into it taking longer to get the credits needed to graduate, less individualized assistance.

The apparent realization among Georgians that they need more and better education is a very good thing. The fact that these ships are plowing intersecting courses without a navigator spells major trouble.

Would somebody among all those claiming to be the elected helmsmen of the state please turn on the radar?