Missouri's public colleges and universities should not have to get approval from another school before they launch a new master's or doctorate degree program, state Sen. Eric Schmitt told the state Senate's Education Committee Wednesday afternoon.
"This bill is not an attempt for every university to be all things to everybody," Schmitt, R-Glendale, explained.
"But I do think this bill would lift some of the barriers for universities to, really, determine who they want to be and what kinds of programs they so want to offer - so that each one of them has a greater sense of ownership over their programs and the degrees."
The universities still would have to get the blessing of the state Coordinating Board for Higher Education, he said.
"It's a better function for them," Schmitt said, "as opposed to another university."
Schmitt's bill also would end a 2005 agreement that ended a 17½-hour filibuster against a bill changing the names of various higher education institutions, including Southwest Missouri State University to Missouri State University.
That agreement placed specific restrictions on Missouri State University, President Cliff Smart testified.
On the Coordinating Board's website, Smart added: "The University of Missouri is described as a land-grant university and Missouri's only public research and doctoral level institution. ....
"So, whether by statute or rule, the University of Missouri is the only university generally authorized to deliver doctoral programs."
Jerry Burch, MSU's lobbyist and a former lawmaker, told the committee some post-graduate students are going out-of-state to school's like Pittsburg State in Kansas, because they don't want to attend MU in Columbia and schools like Missouri Southern, Joplin, can't or don't offer the degrees the students want.
Lincoln University isn't included in Schmitt's bill and wasn't discussed during Wednesday's hearing.
"I'd certainly be willing to work with Lincoln, and find out if there's something they'd like to see," Schmitt told the News Tribune after the hearing. "For me, this has more to do with empowering a greater coordination of how we do this across the state."
LU President Kevin Rome said, in a Wednesday night email, that LU administrators "do not have a comment related to this bill."
Lincoln is in a slightly different position than most of the state's other colleges and universities.
Unlike the University of Missouri, it is not created by the state Constitution - so it's not considered the state's "flagship" university.
But state law gives LU's nine-member Board of Curators generally the same "powers, authority, responsibilities, privileges, immunities, liabilities and compensation ... as those prescribed by statute for the (MU) board of curators ... "
Jay Hahn, director of the Missouri Foundation for Equity in Higher Education, told the Senate committee: "We believe current statutes are, essentially, too muddled. We need to work to provide the clarity necessary to allow all universities to be on a level playing field."
And, he noted, Schmitt's bill doesn't change the way lawmakers decide the state's share of funding.
"Schools would still have to look to see if a program made sense," Hahn said.
Steve Graham, the MU System's associate vice president for academic affairs, told the committee: "We agree that there is no law that prohibits the other institutions from offering degree programs (and) we have no formal authority to veto or object" to any other school's proposals.
But, he added: "Our major concern is for professional and doctoral programs - they're very expensive to offer, anywhere from six-to-10 times what other programs cost."