An attractive premise

Cincinnati Enquirer: The “enterprise university” plan unveiled Thursday by Ohio Chancellor Jim Petro offers a very attractive premise: Remove the government rules and restraints that universities say hamper their efforts to be more entrepreneurial, and they will in turn generate more revenue, create more jobs and produce more graduates while costing taxpayers less.

But the proposal also could strip away some of the strengths inherent in the traditional state-supported university system, including the schools’ accountability and transparency to the public that still would be supporting them. It raises serious questions that must be addressed before Ohioans can have confidence that their interests are truly being served with such a new system.

State lawmakers should tread carefully when considering this measure, because it marks more than simple regulatory reform — it would alter the whole concept of “public university.”

If the state is exercising so little oversight over these institutions, what exactly is its role? With so little money coming from the state, would they really be public universities?

Ohio owes much of its historic success and prosperity to a robust system of public universities providing affordable, easily accessible, broad-based higher education. The fear is that by allowing them near-unrestricted freedom to compete with elite private universities, the education system could leave average Ohioans behind.