The Post editorial: As he marks a decade as president, Bruce Benson has been an open-minded powerhouse at CU.

On March 10, 2008, we joined a bipartisan group of rebels calling for a multimillionaire conservative oilman with but a bachelor’s degree to his name to lead the state’s flagship institution of higher learning.

Now, as Bruce Benson marks his 10th anniversary as president of the four-campus University of Colorado system, we couldn’t be more pleased at such risk-taking. Benson has been an open-minded powerhouse and we hope his accomplishments convince more university boards to look to outsiders as viable leaders, and not always to academics rising through the ranks.

We’ll take it a step further. We hope Benson, who turns 80 on Independence Day, is serious when he tells us he has no plans to step down. The man’s a straightshooter and a class act who has righted the ship after the dark days of the football recruiting scandal that rocked the Boulder campus in 2004.

Chief among our reasons for endorsing Benson 10 years ago was our belief he would help turn around CU’s anemic funding levels. And while state-level funding remains a bleak picture, the figure carries a huge asterisk and there are certainly positives elsewhere.

The university reports its overall budget has grown from $2.2 billion to $4.1 billion under Benson’s leadership. Research funding swelled from $660 million to more than $1 billion, fundraising from $135 million to $386.3 million, its endowment from $640 million to $1.2 billion and internally generated financial aid from $88 million to $184 million.

The totals help ease the sting of poor support from Colorado’s lawmakers. State funding for CU stood at $227 million as Benson took office and dropped as low as $144 million four years later following state budget cuts resulting from the bloody losses of the Great Recession. With state funding now at $194 million, making every dollar count remains a top priority. We do regret that that financial success hasn’t helped curb the rising cost of tuition at CU, but out-of-control costs afflict almost every college and university across the country.

Benson has had better luck with lawmakers in passing legislation that has helped the system increase its operational efficiency, eased financial aid administration, and boosted lucrative international enrollment.

His office touts Benson’s work to streamline policies, increase diversity among both students and faculty and pioneer online courses, including a push to capitalize on popular massive open online courses, or MOOCs. CU announced last month that it would offer a MOOC-delivered master’s degree in electrical engineering — the first of its kind in the world.

Benson tells us he’s most proud of his push to increase academic diversity. The Center for Western Civilization, Thought and Policy has worked to bring conservative ideas to the left-leaning Boulder campus, a welcome antidote to fears and criticisms that universities have lost ground in the development of critical-thinking skills.

Evidence of tolerance appears monthly on campus, as Boulder has been able to peacefully host conservative speakers who have caused riots elsewhere. Even the Boulder campus’ hosting of a Republican debate in 2016 went without mishap.

For all these reasons and many more, if we could endorse Bruce Benson again, we surely would.