State education leaders say that the smaller amount of students earning college degrees is a threat the country's economic leadership and standard of living.

To raise awareness of the critical role higher education plays in Arizona's social and economic prosperity, members of the Arizona Board of Regents, Northern Arizona University president and co-chairs for the Coalition for Solutions Through Higher Education will meet Monday in Yuma.

The 5 to 6:30 p.m. meeting, open to the public, will be held at St. Paul's Cultural Center, 645 S. 2nd Ave.

A fact-based presentation will demonstrate the economic decline of the future in correlation with the declining numbers of college graduates, said Fred DuVal, member of the board of regents.

A statewide campaign was formed "to get to a point where Arizona makes a commitment that every student can stay in school for as long as their intellectual gifts can sustain them and that all the other barriers - cultural, financial, geographical - are eliminated," DuVal said.

The way to produce more college degrees is to keep students in the pipeline of education for as long as possible by addressing the barriers that keep them from school, DuVal said.

In addition, more teachers and schools will be needed to meet that demand, he said.

In order to achieve this, "ultimately (taxpayers will need to) devote a larger share of our public resources and public dollars to educational resources.

"That means more people have to be smart about this, be talking about this and be voting about this, who they support and what's important in our culture," DuVal said.

A plan can be developed sooner if through these meetings, the public recognizes the severity of the problem and how it affects everyone, he said.

"If we do not dramatically increase the rate of degree production, our standard of living will start to decline. We call this a quiet crisis."