Reaction to Gov. Mark Sanford’s college privatization idea:

“Just going private would not automatically give you small class sizes or a higher graduation rate. And that’s what attract students to the state’s private institutions.”

— Jim Byrd, president of the S.C. Independent Colleges and Universities

“What’s that going to do to tuition? I can’t see how it would benefit the universities or benefit the people of South Carolina.”

— David Wilkins, S.C. House speaker

“I think it would discourage a lot of students from coming to Coastal. It’s going to be expensive.”

— Taurean Davis, Coastal Carolina’s student government association president

“I have mixed feelings about it because I’d be glad to be out of the state-help business and enjoy that freedom... . But on the other hand, I think people should support higher education with tax money.”

— Randall Wells, Coastal Carolina English professor

“I just don’t feel like going into debt. It would take five years of employment to pay off the debt. I don’t come to college to go into debt.”

— John Stein, Clemson senior

“I would pay the required amount to come here regardless of the price as long as Clemson stayed the way it was, as far as the academic integrity and professors wanting to help you succeed.”

— Austin Jowers, Clemson junior

“I think we’d lose a lot of people at Clemson. It would become a much smaller university. Clemson has this initiative of being a top-20 university, and I think that would be detrimental to the goal.”

— Nick DePrimio, senior from Chesnee

“My first reaction is that I’m glad he’s (Sanford) thinking outside the box. It’s good to put as many possibilities as we can come up with on the table.”

— Ray Greenberg, MUSC president

“Quite frankly, although we’ll look at it, support from the state still makes up a substantial part (of USC’s budget).”

— Andrew Sorensen, USC president

“This school is much different than other schools, like USC, so there might be something to be gained by privatizing.”

— Daniel Clinebelle, a junior at The Citadel

“I don’t think things would change here if we did go private; we’re pretty much set in terms of gender. I think we might get less applications because of tuition rates going up, though.”

— Ogden Nash, a sophomore at The Citadel

“Most of the time, any proposal this dramatic has been floated around awhile... . I’ve never known of any studies ... or any analysis of how this works, or whether it would be good for South Carolina.”

— State Sen. John Land, D-Clarendon

“Neither the president (Ron Ingle) or his senior staff was briefed on this proposal, so we really can’t say much.”

— Anne Monk, assistant vice president for marketing communications at Coastal Carolina

Compiled by staff writers Jeff Stensland, Gina Smith, Jon Solomon, and Knight Ridder Newspapers