Some folks say Gov. Mark Sanford is anti-education because he suggested last week that a new Coastal Carolina University campus would become a net liability for the state. Not that his opposition, expressed to his fellow S.C. Budget and Control Board members, mattered.

The board majority - Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, Rep. Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, and Democratic S.C. Treasurer Grady Patterson - approved a lease on CCU's planned Pawleys Island campus anyway. They apparently found convincing the CCU argument that student fees would cover payments on a new built-to-order building on Willbrook Boulevard.

There's a bit of disingenuity in this argument. Sure, CCU might operate the Pawleys campus at cost in the near term. But if the campus grows, as is likely, taxpayer feeding eventually would be needed to cover capital and operating costs. Harrell, Patterson and Leatherman should have been a bit more visionary and joined S.C. Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom in doing the governor's bidding.

The ugly little secret of S.C. higher education is that the state has too little money to support its existing institutions and programs because there are way too many of them. CCU President Ron Ingle, among other S.C. university presidents, notes often that inadequate state funding threatens the quality of S.C. higher education.

Perhaps the state should invest more money in higher education - though the increased investment probably should go to the technical colleges, not the universities. But as Sanford himself has said, new investment should be considered only after overhaul of higher-education governance, elimination of duplicative programs and courses and rationalization of course offerings across the state.

Moreover, future expansion of higher education should focus less on bricks and mortar. A smarter investment would be online delivery of courses with subsidized computer purchases and Internet service for students.

As it is, each new campus would diminish the flow of gruel through the S.C. higher-ed trough. Sanford deserves credit, not castigation, for trying to prevent this.