SC colleges need a watchdog, and the watchdog needs support

Recently, The State ran an article with the attention-grabbing headline, “SC agency says it failed to vet $534 million in college projects.” I’d like to explain why the situation is actually worse than it sounds.

The S.C. Commission on Higher Education, which I chair, is required by law to vet all capital projects for the state’s 33 institutions of higher learning. Yet until last year, when we rejected a $29 million football stadium expansion proposed by Coastal Carolina University, no project had ever been denied by our board.

The CHE held four formal meetings and more than 12 hours of direct hearings with Coastal, attempting to overcome concerns about the lack of private investment in the project and the school’s ability to repay the bond without raising tuition or student fees. After our fourth “no” vote, Coastal used the General Assembly to bypass our agency, and the project ultimately received approval.

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SC agency says it failed to vet $534 million in college projects

Legislators help CCU bypass state committee to move stadium expansion forward

Hofferth: SC agency committed to making college accessible, affordable, excellent

McArdle: Luxurious college apartments, built on debt

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The Coastal saga points directly to the question that we have been asking for the past year and a half: Who is going to provide oversight and coordination to ensure the stability of South Carolina’s higher education system?

The national confluence of rising college costs and the declining ability of students to afford those costs will severely stress the balance sheets of our state institutions. South Carolina has already faced the edge of this storm at S.C. State University. While I wasn’t a CHE commissioner at the time, as a taxpayer I was shocked that no one had identified the underlying problems in time to warn state policymakers of the looming crisis, which left the state with only two choices: infuse millions of dollars into the school or force its closure.

Our state can’t afford the staggering costs of an institutional failure. We owe it to our students, families and taxpayers to do everything in our power to prevent such a disaster.

For this reason, the Commission on Higher Education has worked for the past year to develop a set of financial metrics that will help state leaders make data-driven decisions on capital projects and identify potentially dangerous trends at all 33 colleges early enough to address them proactively — before they become full-blown crises.

It is vital that the state have an independent oversight and coordinating agency to collect, track, analyze, interpret and report on this financial data in a timely and transparent way. Whether it’s through a board of regents or an agency such as ours, the two keys for success are support from state leaders (when Mom says no, the institutions can’t go ask Dad) and adequate resources to do the job.

Since joining the CHE two years ago, I’ve come to realize that we lack both elements. South Carolina needs an empowered Commission on Higher Education to serve as caretaker of a coordinated statewide system, and we need policymakers to stand behind us when we have to make hard choices.

Our state faces a defining moment with regard to higher education. The decisions we make today will impact the families and taxpayers of South Carolina for decades. Given national trends of skyrocketing costs of attendance and declining enrollments at colleges and universities, we believe that S.C. State is only the first of our public institutions that will face significant financial difficulties.

We aren’t alone in this belief: The president of one of our research universities recently said that when these national trends are fully realized in our state, we could lose a third of our institutions.

Our only hope to prevent such a catastrophe is to get out ahead of it — to provide sufficient oversight of all 33 colleges so we can help policymakers correct small problems before they become major, and costly, problems.

There is no education in the second kick of the mule. We should learn from S.C. State and the failures of other schools across the country. The Commission on Higher Education must have both the legislative support and resources to provide effective oversight and coordination.

With hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars at risk, someone has to do it. If it’s not going to be us, then I would respectfully ask the Legislature: Who?

The people of South Carolina deserve accountability, and the CHE stands ready to provide it.

This story was originally published January 29, 2017 at 6:24 PM with the headline "SC colleges need a watchdog, and the watchdog needs support."