South Carolina's research universities may have to wait a while longer to get out from under the influence of the state's Commission on Higher Education.

The Senate Finance Committee at its meeting today was expected to take up a bill designed to provide regulatory relief to the state's three research institutions. But the panel was expected to table a controversial part in the bill removing the Medical University of South Carolina, USC and Clemson from commission oversight.

According to several people close to the debate, doing so could give the bill a better chance at passing the Senate this week, the session's last.

Backers of the bill, including MUSC President Ray Greenberg, believe the regulatory relief included in the bill could turn the institutions into an economic development force. The commission, he believes, has wrongly adopted a "one-size fits all" mindset for the state's post-secondary institutions, even though they are all different.

The House agreed, passing the bill 84-10. But the breakaway provision attracted numerous critics.

The state's four-year colleges and its technical school system did not want to be left under commission oversight, and had been expected to propose amendments to the legislation that would free them from the commission, too.

And the commission itself, which faced its potential elimination, fought the bill fiercely.

Meanwhile, concerns were raised about how the universities would be governed under the structure proposed in the bill, said Bo Faulkner, lobbyist for MUSC.

Aside from the breakaway provision, the bill has run into little opposition. Among the regulatory relief provisions offered under the bill is a proposal allowing universities to bypass commission approval when they hire workers whose salaries are funded with federal grants.