They are the ramps where sidewalks meet roads. Curb cuts allow pedestrians to smoothly move from sidewalk to street and back without having to negotiate a concrete ledge.

If you are old enough to remember, curb cuts were not always around. Disability rights activists fought for them for decades. Before then, wheelchairs were difficult to impossible to maneuver on sidewalks.

The funny thing about curb cuts is how, while people with disabilities promoted them and benefit from their use, they ended up helping everyone else. Parents, pushing children in strollers, think that designers made curb cuts for them. Children who had crashed a bike or popped a tire while negotiating curbs now find smooth sailing. Elderly walkers travel the streets more safely.

Currently, the state of Utah is removing “educational curb cuts” from its colleges and universities, undoing resources put in place to support those who struggle — but that end up helping all of us. This year, the Utah Legislature instituted House Bill 261, dismantling programs that had helped generations of students achieve a college education. Next year, they are proposing wide-scale budget cuts, arguing that a more narrow educational focus will help students find good jobs and grow the economy.

Their justification for 10% budget cuts in the face of record enrollments? A projected dip in Utah’s college-aged population of about 2%. This deficit does not appear until 2034, and it will fully close by 2046.

By proposing these policies, lawmakers believe that the answer to our complex world is people who think more uniformly, discarding unnecessary and debatable viewpoints for a streamlined education.

If you agree with their solution, you probably are not hiring college graduates. In national surveys, employers most desire job candidates who are well-rounded, can adapt to new challenges and think outside of the box. Locally, employer surveys reveal a desperate need for “engineers with a personality,” as “critical thinking skills are grossly deficient” among Utah’s college graduates, according to the Deseret News.

What helps students build such skills, making graduates more competitive in the job market and “maximizing their return on investment,” as House Speaker Mike Schultz put it?

Ingesting technical skills or narrowing students’ worldviews will not get us there. According to several meta-analyses that reviewed hundreds of studies, such skills develop through encounters with diverse environments and experiences, which improve cognitive development and critical thinking — for all college students.

H.B. 261 dismantled programs that had created the conditions for students to develop such capabilities. Further slashes to education budgets, with an eye for further reducing these resources, will only amplify students’ current deficiencies in the job market.

In short, lawmakers’ solutions to more effectively prepare students and help industry will do neither.

In fact, these policies will likely result in the opposite of their intended goals, greatly hurting the state of Utah. With budgets cuts, tuitions will go up, as costs get passed on to students. This will discourage future innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders, caregivers and protectors from discovering their full potential. Our experts will be less expert, leaving our graduates even less prepared for the workforce than they are now.

The funny thing about educational curb cuts is that, while created to help people who may not be like us, they still benefit us all.

Pepper Glass is a professor of sociology at Weber State University. Views expressed are the personal opinion of the writer and not the official stance of the university.