Administrators hope for more ‘rational model’ for allocation
There’s pie on the table — and all of South Carolina’s colleges and universities are hungry.
The debate, as usual, is over the divvying up of the slices. One thing’s been made clear, though: There isn’t any more coming out of the oven.
Gov. Nikki Haley held a higher education summit Wednesday with representatives from the state and several South Carolina universities to discuss reforming the allocation system of state funding.
The topic is high-priority for USC officials, who have long griped about the lack of taxpayer money the university system receives — less than 10 percent of its overall budget this year.
“Any expectations that funding will be restored to previous levels are unrealistic,” said USC Provost Dr. Michael Amiridis. “We never had that expectation. The hope is that we get a rational model for how the pie is divided.”
Amiridis said it’s not clear to him exactly what the current model is, but it’s stagnant and needs to be updated.
“It’s based on a historic, traditional model,” he said. “Some years ago it probably was an equitable way to allocate funding. But the institutions are changing — now it’s not.”
USC President Harris Pastides pressed the issue in his State of the University address last month. He challenged legislators, asking, “At what point will South Carolina take on the hard issue of looking at how institutions are fulfilling their mission of educating South Carolinians and rewarding those that do a good job?”
A focus of the summit was “accountability-based funding” — or allocating based on what each institution does to educate the state and how well they place their graduates in jobs.
“This merit-based approach is going to allow schools to work harder,” Haley told reporters afterward. “It’s going to allow smaller schools to excel. Larger schools then have to prove themselves. And in the end, the students and the parents win.”
Pastides promoted USC’s enrollment and its online Palmetto College initiative as indicators of the university’s mission to educate as many South Carolinians as possible.
USC’s chief financial officer, Ed Walton, made the point that USC is at the top of most categories it could be evaluated on, citing its graduation rate, enrollment and diversity.
“If you hold them accountable, you’re going to find USC as accountable as anyone could possibly be,” Walton said.
Both Amiridis and Walton spoke to the importance of USC operating as a privately-funded business without losing its focus on academia.
“In order for it to carry out its mission, it’s going to have to be responsible and accountable,” Walton said.
Amiridis addressed the dichotomy between operating as both a business and public university. He referenced programs like Cocky’s Reading Express, which he said are losing money from a business perspective, but are crucial for the state.
“We are privately funded, but we are publicly minded,” Amiridis said. “For that to happen, you have to have responsible leadership. We will run like a private business, but preserve the public mission of the institution.”
Walton said USC has worked to stay “competitive” and expects it will do well when the reformed funding process is eventually unveiled.
Haley directed a comment at USC after the conference, saying the funding process will need to focus on more than football ticket sales or how big a university is.
But Amiridis said it’s not the Columbia campus he worries about — it’s the satellite campuses, like Beaufort and Upstate, which have increased enrollment, but have seen no bump in funds.
“Institutions in the system are not getting their fair share,” he said.
Walton was reassured by the talks, though. He said it was “one more step towards South Carolina recognizing that higher education is a public good and must be protected.”
“We’re figuring out as a state how it is best funded,” he said. “We didn’t get the answer by any means but we took a step down that path.”