Republic editorial: A lawsuit is a bad way to solve the tuition problem.

Attorney General Mark Brnovich sued the Board of Regents and raised an important question: Is tuition unconstitutionally high at Arizona’s universities? Too bad he didn’t offer a straightforward approach to finding an answer. His lawsuit is linked to the ongoing argument over how to treat young people who were brought to this country illegally by their parents. What’s more, the lawsuit took the regents by surprise, which makes productive dialogue tougher.

For the record, Brnovich says he’s not after “dreamers”: “No one brought here as a kid should be held responsible.”

We agree. Nor should they be used as political pawns.

Brnovich also says his lawsuit challenging sky-high tuition hikes will go on regardless of what the Board of Regents or the courts do about dreamers.

He says this should be “a broader discussion” about Arizona’s responsibility under the state Constitution to provide education “as nearly free as possible.”

In a statement released Monday, ABOR chair Bill Ridenour said the board welcomes the chance to seek “clarification of our constitutional mandate.”

A lawsuit is a problematic way to have a dialogue, and this one is particularly complicated.

The dreamer part of this case started in 2013, when then-Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne sued Maricopa Community Colleges for permitting instate tuition for those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. In 2015, Maricopa County Superior Court sided with the college.

The regents, which sets policies for the state’s three universities, also offered in-state tuition to dreamers.

But this summer, the Arizona Court of Appeals reversed the lower court and said in-state tuition for dreamers violated the 2006 voter-approved Proposition 300, which prohibits such benefits for those who lack legal status.

Regents did not reverse course, opting to wait until the state Supreme Court has the last word.

Brnovich’s suit challenges the regents’ policy on tuition for DACA students as contrary to state law. But that issue seems like an afterthought when you read the complaint the attorney general filed Friday.

In fact, he told The Republic Monday that the DACA lawsuit was a “vehicle” for raising the “bigger, broader issue of why tuition has gotten so expensive.”

The cost of tuition at Arizona’s public universities rose from 315 to 370 percent since 2002, according to the lawsuit.

This is not news to middle-class Arizona families who no longer see university tuition as something they can pay without loans or financial aid.

The regents and the universities, however, make a point of how much financial aid has increased to counter the impact of rising tuition.

Brnovich says going into debt for your degree isn’t what the people who wrote the state Constitution had in mind.

But blaming the regents for tuition hikes — as Brnovich does in his suit — lets the Legislature off the hook for slashing university budgets. It lets Republican Gov. Doug Ducey off the hook for insisting on tax cuts and an austere budget.

Brnovich’s lawsuit contends that tuition increases have exceeded the cuts. Arizona State University President Michael Crow disputes this, pointing to staffing cuts and other measures besides tuition increases to deal with “massive” reductions in state funding.

Ten years ago, the state funded 75 percent of the cost of a resident student’s education. Now it’s 34 percent.

Brnovich inherited the DACA part of the lawsuit. He was pressured to move ahead by former state Sen. Russell Pearce and the conservative legal advocacy organization Judicial Watch, which threatened its own lawsuit if Brnovich didn’t act.

Brnovich says this is not the reason for his suit, which was filed the day before the Judicial Watch deadline.

Pearce’s intentions can be discerned by his past history as an immigration hardliner and prime sponsor of Arizona’s draconian 2010 law, Senate Bill 1070. There is nothing productive in continuing to bash undocumented people.

Brnovich went beyond that and used this case to open a discussion about Arizona’s commitment its own constitutional mandate to make education a shared responsibility. It is a necessary discussion. But a lawsuit against the regents is a highly adversarial approach that focuses the blame narrowly on one public body instead of truly looking at the bigger, broader picture that includes the Legislature and the governor.