Either the Ohio Board of Regents and Chancellor Eric Fingerhut are recognizing how important Ohio’s students are to economic growth, or they just plain like us. Either way, they’ve made all the right moves in the past few months.

First, Fingerhut put his foot down on Kent State’s plan to bill students with fees for campus renovations. Now there could be a new website from which college students can pick and choose the most affordable courses.

Those courses, officials say, would be transferable to universities all over the state.

This is good news for everyone.

It’s good for students because it would give them options. The place you’re enrolled wouldn’t have to be the place they stay because of the obstacles of transferring credits. And it would all be through an accessible online interface.

It’s good for colleges because it could mean more traffic. For Kent State, it likely means more students will start at community colleges in Northeast Ohio and then transfer here to finish their bachelor’s degrees.

It’s good for the state because greater accessibility to higher education is the key to transforming Ohio’s economy from manufacturing and industry — types of jobs other countries now do better — to information and services.

We encourage the newly Republican Ohio government to recognize the importance and creativity of the Board’s strategies. It should provide the Board and Ohio’s universities the resources to continue to develop more strategies that stimulate attendance of Ohio’s schools.

Cheap, creative ideas like the website combined with limited cuts to higher education are two of the best things Ohio can do to help itself in the challenging years ahead.

The above editorial is the consensus opinion of the Daily Kent Stater editorial board whose members are listed to the left.