The idea of a one-size-fits-all committee for the state’s 15 public universities is illogical, at best. Each university has its own identity and operates differently. So one board can’t hope to address all of the differing ideals each university embraces with any level of equity or depth of knowledge.

When asked about the bill, state legislators said they have no specific outcome for the result of the bill, just a blanket plan to cut wasteful spending. That sounds positive, but the lack of specific goals is disturbing.

When the board decides what is and is not wasteful, will it choose to let the universities take care of it or create further legislation? State legislators either have a plan and are misleading the public, or they don’t have a plan and are just crafting legislation.

Legislating in the hope that problems will be dealt with later doesn’t offer any comfort to students.

No one — not students, not administrations and certainly not the state government — is saying universities don’t have to be held accountable for their actions. Committee oversight, though, does not equal accountability. More often than not, oversight just adds bureaucracy and slowdown, especially without specifics as to what the committee is looking for. As MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon said last week at a public meeting at the Detroit Economic Club, “if you add layers, you add cost.”

Oversight will add another layer of costs for the university and, in turn, students. Be it by forcing higher tuition rates or causing program cuts, committee gridlock will alter the quality of education students receive at universities across the state. If the bill works its way through state government, students and taxpayers will be paying for committees that no one in the state asked for.
Universities also already have people to hold themselves accountable to; the student body.

Students are the ones who universities have to provide services and an education for.

Students are supposedly the ones who the universities are for.
Students have the most to lose if state governments begin slashing programs in the name of cutting wasteful spending.

With less state prodding, universities have the ability and freedom to cut spending on their own.

Allowing universities to come up with their own solutions to problems helps maintain the separate identities of public universities. A state committee with vague intentions and no goals is not the answer.