The LSU System Board should be consolidated with the managing boards of all other four-year institutions in the state, the Post Secondary Education Review Commission recommended Thursday.
The Commission — also known as the Tucker Commission — recommended higher education be governed by one board for four-year institutions and a second board for community and technical colleges.
The divisive recommendation is a revision of a previous recommendation, which would keep the Board of Regents, currently coordinating authority in higher education. The previous recommendation also gave the current system boards until 2014 to meet SREB graduation benchmarks to avoid being consolidated.
The recommendation passed five votes to four with the Board of Regents chairman Artis Terrell voting in favor of the recommendation.
Terrell, who is also on the commission, said he wasn’t voting to dissolve the Board of Regents. Terrell said he simply voted to give the state legislature and the people the decision.
Chancellor Michael Martin said students at the University in Baton Rouge wouldn’t see much difference if the change occurred, but it would allow for better inter-institutional cooperation for things like inter-institutional programs.
Consolidating the governance of higher education requires a two-thirds legislative approval and then must be approved by statewide vote.
The commission voted lower level classes, like general education courses, be funded at the same rate across the state with no regard to institution.
Under this recommendation, the University would receive the same amount from the state as a community college to teach a general education course.
Commission chairman Ben Nevers said the recommendation could save the state between $30 to $50 million.
“Unfortunately we are at a time in our state where we don’t have enough money to fund as we have in the past,” Nevers said.
The Tucker Commission will finalize its recommendations in a report addressed to the Board of Regents on Friday. The Board of Regents will review the results and comment to a joint education committee on Tuesday and Wednesday.——Contact Xerxes A. Wilson at [email protected]