State-“assisted” university?

Friday’s editorial describes the general lack of support for state universities from the S.C. Statehouse.

In “normal” years, Myrtle Beach-area unemployment typically swings from about 7.5 percent in the dead of winter to 5 percent at the peak of summer.

In the beginning of 2008, that pattern appeared at first to be on track - January 2008 unemployment was 7.4 percent and fell to a little above 5 percent by April and May - but then the numbers started to rise. And they didn’t stop rising. June and July were around 6 percent; we passed 7 in September; by November we were touching 10 percent; and by January 2009 our unemployment had topped out at a disastrous 14.3 percent.

Summer of 2009 brought about the same scale of relief as normal - unemployment dropped by about a third back down to 10 percent - but by then we knew we were playing in a whole new sandbox, with twice as many people out of work as in the year prior. Suffice to say, the preliminary figures for this past December show a staggering new high of 14.8 percent unemployment.

Now, consider that since 2008 Coastal Carolina University has had close to $60 million in cash on hand of money raised from local fees for at least four new construction projects - the student recreation complex, the Swain Science Annex, the library expansion, and a new utility station. Those projects would have created many local private-sector construction jobs, and those workers in turn would had more money to spend on their own families, lifting other area sectors.

It’s a completely local version of the whole idea behind stimulative pending, and yet the projects are still on hold and the money is thus still frozen - and it’s not Coastal’s fault.

Coastal wanted to spend the money - construction costs were low, so they might have been able to squeeze a fifth project (a new classroom-and-office building) out of the money they had. In fact, they were actively trying to spend it, but they were caught in the state’s vicious bureaucratic maze.

“I could be putting people to work building buildings,” CCU President Dave DeCenzo told The Sun News editorial board last week in frustration.

Instead, the projects must first go to the Commission on Higher Education, then to the state’s Joint Bond committee, then the S.C. Budget and Control Board (which hears facilities requests twice a year or so), and then they’re authorized to spend money on blueprints. With those in hand, they start the whole process over again, before they’re given permission to bid the project.

Lost yet? Yeah - just like those construction jobs.

They’re actually not “lost,” of course - just needlessly delayed at a critical time. The projects will break ground this year, likely 14 to 16 months after the CCU board approved them. During that time, DeCenzo said, a local school board could have approved and built an entire new high-school campus.

Lawmakers are considering a bill this year to provide “regulatory relief” to colleges (if that sounds abstract, just think again about anyone you know who could use a construction job), dramatically shortening this convoluted approval process to about three months. Whether or not it passes will be key to Coastal’s decision on its continued “relationship” with the state - which in turn speaks to our South Carolina’s general disinterest toward higher education.

State funding for CCU has slipped this year, amid budget cuts, to about $10 million, or a meager 7 percent of the school’s $140 million budget, said CCU Vice President Eddie Dyer. By contrast, when he came to the school in 1976, two-thirds of the budgets came from the state. With so little state support now, there is a strong argument that if the school can free itself from oppressive bureaucratic control by raising tuition a final $1,000 per student (more for out-of-state students, less for in-state) and forgoing its little sliver of state money, it may be well worth it to the students in terms of the benefits they receive.

This outcome would tragically finalize a fundamental philosophical shift in our state’s attitude toward higher education. Where once colleges and universities were perceived as primarily a benefit to society as a whole - and so the state sought to make them as accessible to students as possible - higher education is now seen as primarily benefiting the individual student who receives it, so he must pay for most of it.

Our previous outlook is vastly preferable. Let’s move South Carolina back toward it by lightening the regulatory load on colleges and, in the future, translating our state’s “support” for higher education into a real financial commitment to their success.

It’s a completely local version of the whole idea behind stimulative pending, and yet the projects are still on hold and the money is thus still frozen - and it’s not Coastal’s fault.

Coastal wanted to spend the money - construction costs were low, so they might have been able to squeeze a fifth project (a new classroom-and-office building) out of the money they had. In fact, they were actively trying to spend it, but they were caught in the state’s vicious bureaucratic maze.

“I could be putting people to work building buildings,” CCU President Dave DeCenzo told The Sun News editorial board last week in frustration.

Instead, the projects must first go to the Commission on Higher Education, then to the state’s Joint Bond committee, then the S.C. Budget and Control Board (which hears facilities requests twice a year or so), and then they’re authorized to spend money on blueprints. With those in hand, they start the whole process over again, before they’re given permission to bid the project.

Lost yet? Yeah - just like those construction jobs.

They’re actually not “lost,” of course - just needlessly delayed at a critical time. The projects will break ground this year, likely 14 to 16 months after the CCU board approved them. During that time, DeCenzo said, a local school board could have approved and built an entire new high-school campus.

Lawmakers are considering a bill this year to provide “regulatory relief” to colleges (if that sounds abstract, just think again about anyone you know who could use a construction job), dramatically shortening this convoluted approval process to about three months. Whether or not it passes will be key to Coastal’s decision on its continued “relationship” with the state - which in turn speaks to our South Carolina’s general disinterest toward higher education.

State funding for CCU has slipped this year, amid budget cuts, to about $10 million, or a meager 7 percent of the school’s $140 million budget, said CCU Vice President Eddie Dyer. By contrast, when he came to the school in 1976, two-thirds of the budgets came from the state. With so little state support now, there is a strong argument that if the school can free itself from oppressive bureaucratic control by raising tuition a final $1,000 per student (more for out-of-state students, less for in-state) and forgoing its little sliver of state money, it may be well worth it to the students in terms of the benefits they receive.

This outcome would tragically finalize a fundamental philosophical shift in our state’s attitude toward higher education. Where once colleges and universities were perceived as primarily a benefit to society as a whole - and so the state sought to make them as accessible to students as possible - higher education is now seen as primarily benefiting the individual student who receives it, so he must pay for most of it.

Our previous outlook is vastly preferable. Let’s move South Carolina back toward it by lightening the regulatory load on colleges and, in the future, translating our state’s “support” for higher education into a real financial commitment to their success.