Tuesday is Higher Education Day at the State Capitol, where public and private colleges across the state display their best to legislators and the public in the Capitol hallways.
Higher education in West Virginia has a big challenge. The state has the lowest rate of college attainment - 28 percent - but more than half of all jobs are expected to require some education beyond high school by 2020.
The state's two higher education systems, one for four-year institutions and one for two-year colleges, are working to improve that rate. The Higher Education Policy Commission and the Community and Technical College System introduced a plan in December to double the degrees produced annually by the year 2025.
That announcement came on the heels of a record number of college degrees - more than 18,000 - awarded by the two systems in 2014.
Meanwhile, like other parts of state government, higher education is seeing its share of budgetary hard times. Colleges and universities have seen consecutive years of cuts in state funding.
So it makes sense for the two agencies to receive a thorough review, looking for efficiencies in all aspects of operations.
But what doesn't make sense, and what's not fair for the agencies or the public, is for the agencies to be blindsided by a highly critical report on a Friday afternoon and told to be ready to defend themselves before a legislative committee the following Monday morning, as happened last week.
"Due to the short amount of time, we cannot schedule an exit conference to discuss the report or request your written response," director of the Legislative Auditor's office of Performance Evaluation and Research John Sylvia wrote in letters to system chancellors Paul Hill and Sarah Tucker on Jan. 8. "However, this may be done at a later date."
Hill said the report was an "unfair critique that lacks sufficient evidence for its claims ..."
"While we welcome a fair evaluation of our agency, we fear that such an incomplete and uninformed review could only serve to erode the far-reaching work we are doing" to increase the number of graduates, Hill told lawmakers at an interim committee last week.
The lawmakers smartly delayed receiving the audit.
Make no mistake: higher education - and every other state agency - needs to be subject to deep scrutiny and to be held accountable. But two of the state's vital agencies shouldn't be subject to an inadequate and hurried review and then not be provided adequate opportunity for response.