S.C. colleges avoid cuts, on track to get new money (posted 3.7.06 www.thestate.com)

By JAMES T. HAMMOND
jhammond@thestate.com

South Carolina�s state-assisted colleges appear to have eluded the budget knife in the House of Representatives.

House budget writers have tentatively agreed to ignore Gov. Mark Sanford�s call for $25 million in collective cuts for state colleges and to add $31.5 million in new spending.

The budget plan also includes a tuition cap. But the formula under consideration won�t prevent schools from approving double-digit tuition increases.

The cap would allow the University of South Carolina, for example, to increase its tuition and required fees for undergraduate S.C. residents by 10.3 percent, or a maximum of $756 next year, to $8,070. USC officials expect tuition to rise 8 percent to 10 percent.

USC spokesman Russ McKinney said the university was �pleased with where we are. With the committee endorsing this plan, we�re optimistic� about the vote in the full House.

The House Ways and Means Committee plans to vote on the spending plan today, which would keep base spending at about $664 million.

The committee has earmarked about $10 million in �parity funding� to several of the smaller state-assisted institutions to bring their funding into line with other colleges.

�I think the committee did a pretty fair job of allocating that money to schools that didn�t get a fair shake,� said Rep. Chip Limehouse, R-Charleston, the education subcommittee chairman.

�The big schools fared pretty well. We took care of some capital needs, as well,� he said.

The state-assisted colleges have hundreds of millions of dollars in maintenance needs. The proposed budget would address a few of those, such as the $1.5 million allocated to The Citadel to put a new roof on its infirmary.

Limehouse expressed confidence that the full House would not attack the spending plan, which is spread strategically across the state.

�If a legislator wants something, it seems like they would be willing to support most of what the committee has done to get money for home,� Limehouse said.

USC and Clemson leaders have not confronted lawmakers over the tuition caps issue, even though they continue to oppose in principle any limits on their trustees� powers to set tuition.

But student leaders have waged a visible and broad campaign among lawmakers to head off spending limits they believe could reduce the quality of their education.

�Students are willing to pay higher tuition if they know it�s going to pay for a higher-quality education,� said Kely Sheldon, a Clemson student and chairman of the S.C. State Student Association.

Sheldon and several USC student government leaders last week took their arguments to Gov. Mark Sanford, who had proposed reducing state spending on colleges and capping tuition at the level of inflation.

Sanford would only say about the House proposal that it was �a step in the right direction.�

Last Wednesday, in a casual dialogue around the coffee table in his State House office, Sanford told the student leaders South Carolina government devotes to higher education the second-highest percentage of its budget (19 percent) of any state in the Southeast.

He described a helter-skelter higher education system crying out for coordination. And he said his tuition-cap proposal only aimed to force a political debate about bringing an unwieldy and costly system to heel.

�We would gladly punt on the tuition caps; they are a means to an end to force a debate on a coordinated system,� said Sanford, pointing out that inflation in the technical college system is half that of the other colleges and universities.

Staff writer John O�Connor contributed. Reach Hammond at (803) 771-8474.