Summit on SC College costs highlights major disagreement

Gov. Mark Sanford called a "Higher Education Summit" Tuesday in Columbia to get people together to look for ways to get rising college tuition costs under control. But the participants couldn't even agree on which numbers to use and disagreed on the scope of the problem.

Along with the governor, participants included representatives from colleges, universities and technical colleges from around the state, state lawmakers, parents and students. Gov. Sanford says, "We are increasingly pricing higher education out of the hands of working South Carolinians, and at some point we've got to have a really earnest debate about what we do next." 

But Clemson University officials argue that scholarships and financial aid mean none of its students pays full tuition, thanks to financial aid and scholarships. Clemson's tuition went up by 7.5% this year. 

Clemson trustee Bill Hendrix said after the summit, "Students obviously think it's affordable. We have unprecedented demand. We had more applications last year than we ever have, so if we had priced ourselves out of the market, why aren't we seeing a decline in applications?" 

All of the colleges and universities agree that less funding from the state for higher education forced them to raise tuition this year. 

But they and the governor could not agree on how to measure funding and spending. For example, should lottery scholarship money be counted as state funding for the universities, since it comes from the state lottery? Or, since it's money paid to the students, who then use it for tuition, should it be counted as part of student spending for tuition? 

Gov. Sanford has proposed putting a freeze on new building at the state's colleges and universities. But USC Vice President for Planning Dr. Ted Moore says new building construction makes up only 6 to 7 percent of a student's tuition, and on a campus that's more than 200 years old, it's necessary to maintain old buildings and build new ones. 

He says a construction freeze would be a disaster. "Most of the projects are funded by sources that do not include the state and do not include tuition and if we stop those projects, that means that funding would not be forthcoming to the state of South Carolina," he says. 

Even though they couldn't agree on the numbers involved, the governor says the summit did accomplish something by bringing together all the stakeholders to begin a debate that is looming next year, when federal stimulus money will be gone and the state budget is facing a $1 billion shortfall. 

What would Gov. Sanford's solution be to rising tuition? 

"I think the solution is you've got to move to a more rational system. That's why we've included any number of proposals to close down some number of campuses. There's duplication at a program level. There's duplication at two-year schools versus the technical school system in some instances," he says. 

And while South Carolina's universities are often compared negatively to North Carolina's, which has much lower tuition, Gov. Sanford says North Carolina also has a tax load that's about 30 percent higher. 

The state Budget and Control Board, which Gov. Sanford chairs, is expected to discuss at its meeting Wednesday whether to put a moratorium on new construction at the state's colleges and universities.