Why Louisiana needs a single board of higher education

America has the best system of higher education in the history of civilization, and many of those schools are right here in Louisiana.

Yet, our colleges and universities are being held back, and Louisiana taxpayers are not getting their full money’s worth for the dollars they contribute to higher education.

We don’t have too many schools, in my opinion. We have too many schools that try to do the same thing – a direct consequence of Louisiana’s higher education governance structure.

We are one state, but we have three systems of higher education – the LSU System, the Southern System and the University of Louisiana System.

Each has its own board of supervisors. Consequently, the higher education boards in Louisiana resemble the factions in Iraq: just as the Sunnis fight the Shiites who fight the Kurds for political power and natural resources, the three systems of higher education in Louisiana scrap over turf and scarce taxpayer dollars in a political free-for-all that plays out every year in the Louisiana Legislature.

The Board of Regents is responsible for coordinating the higher education systems, but the job is almost impossible under this top-heavy, dueling board structure.

I am not alone in my observations.

The Public Affairs Research Council (PAR) has opined that “the structure of higher education in Louisiana is in need of serious overhaul. … Louisiana operates an excessive number of higher education institutions haphazardly arranged under four independent governing boards. This approach leads to unnecessary redundancy and inflated costs. The Board of Regents lacks the authority necessary to develop and enforce a comprehensive design for higher education.”

As state treasurer, I am a member of the Louisiana Streamlining Government Commission, charged by the Legislature with downsizing state government in light of future projected budget shortfalls.

I chair the subcommittee on efficiency and benchmarking, which has recently made several cost-saving recommendations for consideration by the full commission, the governor and the Louisiana Legislature.

One such recommendation is to abolish Louisiana’s three systems of higher education and their boards of supervisors, and to place all four-year colleges and universities under the jurisdiction, management and control of the Board of Regents.

A single board would be open to the ambitions of all of our schools, with the understanding that we can afford only one flagship university – and that is LSU.

A single board with geographical and institutional diversity would be able to designate each campus with areas of specialization and decide how many schools of architecture – or engineering or nursing or journalism – are really needed and can be afforded by Louisiana taxpayers.

Joint long-term planning will help to develop the unique assets of each campus, helping to make higher education a linchpin in our state’s economic development efforts.

A single board would be able to make strategic decisions based on data and resources, not politics. This will help Louisiana be better prepared to meet the higher education demands of the future, while enhancing the quality of undergraduate and graduate education programs, facilitating valuable research endeavors and expanding educational partnerships.

Thirty-four percent of all Americans have a college education. In Louisiana that number is 22 percent.

With serious budget shortfalls facing our state over the next several years, we will continue to fall behind unless we spend every penny efficiently and wisely, based on sound policy and good data, not politics or turf battles.

The current split board system should be replaced with a single board of diverse men and women who care about one thing: making our colleges and universities as good as they can be with the scarce, hard-earned taxpayer dollars we have available to us.

If you are as tired as I am of being last, why don’t we try doing it the right way for a change?