More higher ed consolidation

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start of state colleges cutting costs,

operating within state's fiscal means.

Bravo to a joint proposal by the Medical University of South Carolina and the University of South Carolina to merge pharmacy colleges and possibly save the state as much $2.5 million. But this move, though welcome and critically needed, simply underscores the utter failure of the system of performance funding that was supposed to end duplication in higher education. It also highlights how inefficiently scarce public dollars are being spent. This state should be streamlining operations.

But South Carolina's provincial legislative politics has permitted colleges to overlap missions and services. Historically, public institutions have been somewhat free to pursue their own interests. Without better governance of higher education, where institutional prerogatives are ingrained in an overall state mission, South Carolina has brazenly courted the inefficiency under which it is now suffering. Expansions have been made and programs have been allowed to exist across the system without regard to state's the financial limitations.

Performance funding, adopted in 1996 to force colleges to justify their spending, has been an abysmal failure as it has yet to close a single college, program or campus. The Legislature is responsible, having left the Commission on Higher Education powerless to make needed cuts. This refusal to cut and consolidate has exacerbated three years of falling revenues. The state is spending $87 million less on higher education compared to 2001. At Clemson University, state funding now accounts for less than one-fourth of its operational budget.

It is time for the Legislature to get rid of the failed system of performance funding and adopt a funding method that demands more big-picture fiscal accountability.

Higher education costs will continue to climb. This state's student population is growing, and schools are under the gun to stay globally competitive for top scholars and lucrative research funding. The pressure is to spend and build, not cut costs. Students have unfairly been shouldering much this burden, paying far more in tuition yet receiving less from reduced faculty and thinner course offerings.

Economic realities and this real threat to instructional quality is doing something our Legislature has refused to do and that's to force efficiency on state colleges.

While merging pharmacy schools helps, complete efficiency will come only from a comprehensive study of our higher education assets and a commitment to significant reform by the Legislature. A good starting point for both is a Legislative Audit Council report on the failure of performance funding in this state and Gov. Mark Sanford's proposal to institute a board of regents style of governance in South Carolina. A board of regents may or may not be the answer, but what's important is to start the debate now and get the ball rolling on reform.

It is indeed telling when MUSC President Ray Greenberg says this consolidation proposal is not in response to outside pressure. Therein lies the problem, a Legislature that has refused to force efficiency on a system in dire need of it.