It's hard to believe Plattsburgh State was ready to cancel winter commencement for 500 students for lack of $8,000 in a $30 million budget. It's gratifying to see the students, at least, coming to the rescue to restore the event.

For a few students, the graduation exercises are a needless formality at an instant in their long journey through life. For most, though, the exercises are a milestone that significantly recognizes the culmination of one important phase and the entry into the next.

The college has been battered by the state's budget mess, as most areas of state government have. There's the matter of a $5.7 million deficit to make up on the Plattsburgh campus. A college administration — any college administration — has plenty of work before it in normal circumstances. Throw in a $5.7 million deficit, and you've strained the best in the business.

But the arithmetic doesn't justify the overreaction of canceling winter commencement. That ceremony is simply too important and too inexpensive to be regarded as a key contributor to fiscal soundness.

When 500 out of 6,200 students — about 5,700 undergraduates — are ready to accept their degrees, the college should be ready to formally and officially hand them over. Not in six months, with the next batch of graduates, but now.

The plan had been for the December 2009 graduates to return in May 2010 to be honored with that group. For many, that would have been impossible, or at least impractical. Most will have jobs by then, probably far from here. Other events in their lives will have interceded. Some have families who already had hotel or plane reservations to be here in December. For $8,000 they should be obliged to make potentially costly and inconvenient new plans?

It fell to the college's Student Association to cover the expense for the winter commencement, and we applaud the group for recognizing the importance of the ceremony. The college has said future winter commencements will be assessed later on to see whether they should be continued.

They should.

Everyone has sympathy for the college in its fiscal crisis. But such a critical exercise as graduation should not fall victim of that relatively paltry expense.

Only Plattsburgh State and Oswego State now hold winter graduations among the SUNY campuses, and that probably feeds the notion that it is not a necessity. Once you've established it, however, it is a necessity. Students may have to sacrifice in some areas because of budget exigencies, but they shouldn't be forced to give up their timely college graduation in the interest of $8,000.

Good for the Student Association. Let its sage example govern the decision on future winter commencements.