Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff's plan to grant tax credits to anyone paying the tuition of a college student is aimed at a genuine problem: a college education is more vital and more costly than ever. But the Ribicoff measure is the wrong way to go about cutting the tuition tab that parents must pay.

Ribicoff's plan would allow parents of college students to subtract a maximum of $325 from the income tax. The credit would amount to 75 per cent of the first $200 paid for an education, 25 per cent of the next $300, and 10 per cent of the next $1,000. The credits to very well-healed parents would be less -- reduced $1 for every $100 earned in excess of $25,000 a year. This means that anyone making more than $57,500 annually would be ineligible.

The Administration, in opposing the tax credit bill, has pointed out that it would cost the Treasury about $600 million in the first year and as much as $1.3 billion annually by 1970. The tax credit would also, the Administration contends, be swallowed up by increased tuitions once colleges realized that they could demand more money from their students. Lastly, the bill has been labelled "class legislation" because it would aid only those with enough income to pay substantial taxes in the first place.

It is this third argument which carries the most weight. Ribicoff's bill would have little or no effect on the poor; either they pay no taxes, or they cannot afford to send their children to college at all, or they depend on scholarships to do so. According to Ribicoff's own estimate, nearly a third of those affected by the tax credit would have incomes of more than $10,000 a year. His plan, for all its appeal to the glory of education for all, would add a regressive element to the tax structure.

The Senate last week passed the Ribicoff proposal, and a sub-committee of the House Education and Labor Committee is considering it now. The House should scrap the tax credit in favor of more federal scholarships and loans.