South Carolina Takes Out Higher Ed’s Trash

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | October 28, 2026 | Robert Cathcart

[karpov]

My wife, daughter, and I walk through our neighborhood every day. I’ve been monitoring the situation at one house for the last few years—the yard is usually clogged with old furniture, chairs, sofas, lamps, and every other type of regularly discarded household item imaginable. In recent months, a dumpster has been parked in the yard instead. That dumpster contains the contents formerly strewn across the yard. It appears, upon closer inspection, that the mass inside the dumpster continues to grow. The root problem (hoarding) remains unsolved, even as the symptom (the hoard) is slowly managed.

There are some, however, who defend hoarding. For instance, there is a strand of conservatism that describes its philosophy as the accretion of wisdom over time. Museums, similarly, are repositories for numerous items from the past. What separates the conservative and the museum from the hoarder? Wisdom and the willingness to be selective—in other words, to play the gatekeeper. Accretion can be a good thing, but only if one throws out the bathwater without the baby. Universities’ degree offerings, under the guise of institutional conservatism, resemble the hoarder’s maze more than a well-curated museum.

Universities retain far too many degree programs, which leads to ballooning faculty, office space, and ultimately tuition. For the last few years, the South Carolina General Assembly has given funding to state colleges and universities to keep tuition from rising. Generally, that funding came with few strings attached.

That is no longer the case. For fiscal year 2027, legislators passed Budget Proviso 117.149, which gives funding for another round of tuition mitigation. This time, however, South Carolina is requiring colleges to review their academic programs. The Proviso also empowers the Commission on Higher Education to produce a report detailing recent program approvals and terminations

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TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: college