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EDITORIAL
OP-ED; Gov thinks outside the box on higher ed
Thomas M. KEANE Jr.

03/07/2003
Boston Herald
All Editions
025
(Copyright 2003)

Higher education in Massachusetts is in need of a hake-up,one that begins by asking ome pretty fundamental questions.

And those questions are not: Should William Bulger and his $14 million office tay or go?Nor do they include:Can the Romney administration really save $100 million on higher ed?

Bulger 's fate - asmuchas it makes for water-cooler conversation - is a red herring,hardly central to the future of education.And the cost-savings the administration hopes for are a aideshow.

Some savings are possible by consolidating and rationalizing a far-flung system,but the actual amount remains unclear.

The important issue is this:Why and under what circumstances should the state have its own colleges and universities?

The conventional answer is that without state-supported colleges and universities, students of lower economic means could never go beyond high school.

That certainly was true in 1863, when the University of Massachusetts at Amherst was founded.Private institutions such as Harvard were for the wealthy. Publicly supported universities sprang up in most every state to fulfill a clear need: Higher education for the middle and lower classes.

There was always something dubious about that approach,which in essence consigned the poor to an entirely different school system.

But things changed in the last half of the 20th century.Private institutions began to admit students based on merit.They adopted need-based scholarships.The federal and tate governments got involved too,with grants and loans that in theory were supposed to make college available to all.

And while not perfect,that 's largely the system we have today. Boston University,Northeastern, and Boston College - to name but a few - reach out to students from all backgrounds. True,getting an education may entail financial sacrifice (in fact,many argue that financial sacrifice is an important part of making an education meaningful), but few are excluded.

And if that 's the case,why should the state still have its own schools? Wouldn 't it make more sense to simply boost tate financial aid to those who need it,rather than subsidizing an entire school?

To an extent,Gov.Mitt Romney 's dramatic plans for higher education head in this direction. He would make all 29 state universities and colleges more independent. Each would have its own board of trustees and, unlike today, would keep tuitions rather than turning them back to the state's general fund. Some schools,such as UMass Medical School in Worcester and the Massachusetts College of Art would be privatized completely. Others,like UMass/Amherst, which already has a strong national reputation,would be cut free of most state controls.

But there is another part of higher education where state involvement remains vital. It revolves around community colleges and the need for work-force training.

The think-tank MassInc has been in the forefront of arguing that higher education is critical not only to the state 's economic success but to individual success as well.It maintains that a minimum of two years of post-secondary schooling is needed to participate in today 's knowledge-based economy. By its reckoning,667,000 workers lack those skills, something that limits the state 's economic prospects.

n top of that,while Massachu- setts as a whole has had trong economic growth, that growth has not been evenly shared. For example,average wages increased 27 percent in greater Boston from 1991 to 2000 while wages in the western part of the state grew by an appallingly low 6 percent.

Turns out, it really isn't better in the Berkshires.

Romney 's thought is to have the tate 's 15 community colleges play a key role in regional economic development.He plans to divvy up the schools into seven regions, making them accountable to unpaid local "coordinating councils "made up of area business leaders,residents and trustees.The schools would refocus on providing education and training that are tied to each region and relate directly to helping students secure decent jobs.

The details of Romney 's plans are sketchy;as he says,this is "vision,not blueprint. "It probably won't be until May when a full plan is unveiled. Moreover,opposition is bound to be fierce. The educational establishment is notoriously resistant to change. And the link between politicians and state colleges is tight; more than a few campaign workers end up omewhere in the state 's college system.

But at least the debate has been joined.It's been a long time,if ever, that anyone has been willing to rethink the very purposes of state-supported higher education.To its credit,that's the process that the Romney administration has begun.

Graphic: ROMNEY:Initiates a long overdue debate.

Tom Keane can be reached at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.