ROCK HILL - Six of the seven S.C. candidates for governor took on higher education funding, scholarships and the role of state research universities in economic development at a Winthrop University debate Tuesday night.
State Sen. Robert Ford of Charleston, state Superintendent of Education Jim Rex and state Sen. Vincent Sheheen of Kershaw - all Democrats - joined Republican candidates Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, state Rep. Nikki Haley of Lexington and Attorney General Henry McMaster. U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, another Republican, was in Washington D.C. voting on legislation and missed the debate.
College funding dominated the discussion, as plunging state revenues have cut the state share of higher education spending nearly in half the past two years.
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None of the candidates supported raising the state's cigarette tax - the lowest in the nation at 7 cents a pack - in order to boost higher education budgets. Ford leaned on a plan to legalize and tax video poker, which he said would add $50 million to college budgets. Rex, Sheheen and McMaster all advocated comprehensive tax reform, which they believe would smooth the economic ups and downs of the state's current tax system.
"Tax reform is the only long-term solution," said Rex, who advocated repealing sales tax caps on cars, boats and airplanes.
Keeping the price of college affordable, Sheheen reiterated all night, was the most important higher education issue.
Bauer criticized colleges for building too many buildings - singling out athletics - though those facilities are often funded by bonds and through the general fund. Bauer also said schools need to do a better job of weeding out students unable or unwilling to handle college coursework and direct them toward professional training.
Haley stood apart from the other candidates all evening. She was the only candidate to propose eliminating college and university boards of trustees, eliminating college campuses around the state and ending university-tied economic development. Innovista, a $250 million USC project focused on hydrogen energy research that has yet to bear fruit, was a target for Haley and other candidates.
"South Carolina does not need to be in the business of gambling to see if research is going to work," Haley said. "The problem is that South Carolina . . . thinks government is the answer for all things."
Rex argued for a more targeted approach building on the state's strengths, particularly nuclear energy, while Ford cited a new wind turbine research project in Charleston as evidence the strategy of using higher education to build expertise was working, and that Charleston would compete with Atlanta and Charlotte in a decade.
Sheheen generally supported the approach, but said so far the schools have focused too much on facilities. Buildings, he said, do not create jobs.
"If the results don't pan out we have to pull the plug," he said.
The candidates agreed that getting state businesses involved early in education could inspire more students to graduate and have a career in mind. Likewise, all argued that state technical colleges could be better used to engage middle school students and to help train workers for the high-tech jobs the state seeks.
When asked if they favored decreasing the role of standardized test scores in evaluating scholarships to boost the number of black students who receive the awards, only Bauer said he had no problem with current practices that sometimes leave black students out.
Both McMaster and Sheheen emphasized the need to increase needs-based scholarship, while Ford said he pushed to include those scholarships in the lottery law approved by the state in 2001.
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