Make universities public corporations

"There is no point in waiting until everything falls off a cliff to do something that could cushion the fall," Frohnmayer said in an interview. "We will fall if we don’t do something dramatic."

Otherwise, the university system will continue to starve financially, which threatens to destroy the state’s economic future and render it a "stagnant backwater," Frohnmayer said.

Oregon should convert its largest universities into public corporations so they have more freedom to raise money and revitalize the state’s stifled higher education system, Dave Frohnmayer, recently retired president of the University of Oregon, said Wednesday.

In a report prepared at the request of Chancellor George Pernsteiner, Frohnmayer urgently recommends that the February Legislature give the State Board of Higher Education authority to restructure the university system. Oregon State, the University of Oregon and Portland State should become more autonomous public corporations similar to Oregon Health & Science University, he said.

By Bill Graves, The Oregonian

Full Story: http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2009/11/frohnmayer_make_universities_p.html