Haridopolos Proposes Universities Trade Majors to Trim Budgets

Senate President Mike Haridopolos says one way state universities can shave their budgets is to trade majors.

Sit down like kids with baseball cards and swap professors in order to concentrate majors at the university where the program is already the strongest.

Ill give you a British Studies for your Latin American program.

Im a person who likes to be pragmatic and I think if you get good people around a table maybe they can make some trades, so to speak, Haridopolos said during a sit-down with reporters.

If there is an institution that has a strong program and another institution that doesnt have a strong program, maybe move some of those outstanding professors to one place, reduce some of the overhead costs at the other place, and maybe move an unsuccessful program from that same university to the other university.

View video of Haridopolos' comments here.

The proposal, a first step, would give the schools more flexibility with less legislative oversight, he said.