Duplication, inefficiency

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The General Assembly must force efficiency on a state system of higher education that is growing at a time when stagnant state revenues should be demanding consolidation and greater fiscal responsibility.

South Carolina should be closing campuses and cutting duplicate programs. Instead it is adding more.

Gov. Mark Sanford used the recent addition of a Coastal Carolina University satellite campus on Pawleys Island to underscore just how overbuilt this state's higher education infrastructure is. South Carolina's 34 public colleges and universities will now operate a stunning 78 campuses. Putting campuses in close proximity to potential student populations makes sense. Access should not be an impediment to higher education, especially in a state that desperately needs a more educated work force to compete in an economy that increasingly covets skill and expertise.

But many of these campuses serve only a few hundred students, some only a couple of dozen. In Sumter, a pair of two-year college campuses operate on virtually the same property. And for a comparatively small state, South Carolina has two medical schools, duplicate nursing and engineering programs and entire colleges within some of our universities that, if forced to justify their existence, may have a hard time doing so.

Greenville Sen. Mike Fair pegged a large part of the problem: politics. For decades this state has failed to take a serious, systemwide view of higher education and make funding decisions based upon efficiency and a shared vision. Provincialism won, which means decisions on program expansions and campus construction continue to be made according to the self-interests of schools, individual politicians and county delegations.

The state's most serious attempt at forcing efficiency ended when the Legislature stripped the Commission on Higher Education of its authority to cut programs. In seven years the much ballyhooed system of performance funding, which was supposed to force schools to justify programs and expansion, has cut few programs and has yet to shutter one campus.

Sanford campaigned on adopting a board of regents system in South Carolina. It is an idea worth exploring, as it should kill rank provincialism and force each institution's ambitions and plans to fit within state means.

Higher education has been cut $114 million over the past three years due to sagging revenues. At Clemson University, state dollars account for less than a third of its funding. To hold on to our ambitions for higher education, South Carolina must spend every dollar wisely.

If South Carolina is going to give its colleges and universities adequate means to educate and conduct the research that will grow our economy, then it is critical that the state get more bang for its buck. Right now, we're wasting precious resources by funding disparate missions among our colleges and indulging the worst kind of self-interest with no cohesive plan.