COLUMBUS — As a candidate for governor, Republican John Kasich has called on colleges and universities to cut costs and force professors to teach more courses.

Yet for seven years Kasich served as a “presidential fellow” at his alma mater, Ohio State University, in a role that paid him the equivalent of about $4,000 per campus visit.

“It sounds like a perk program for a politician that we can’t afford,” said Matt Mayer of the Buckeye Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank that has posted government salaries in an online database.

Rob Nichols, Kasich’s campaign spokesman, said: “John was paid in alignment with what OSU thought his teaching was worth. They thought his work there was valuable — they kept asking him back.”

The job was among the many hats Kasich wore in the years after he left Congress in 2000. Although other politicians, including Republican Senate candidate Rob Portman, have taught courses at OSU for no cost, Kasich’s role paid him $50,000 a year.

Then-OSU President Brit Kirwin invited Kasich to serve as a fellow in August 2001. Starting with the 2002 winter quarter and ending last year, Kasich worked roughly one to five days a month — guest-lecturing in political science, economics, finance and psychology courses, posing a question of the month to first-year Mount Scholars, and serving as a panelist at banquets and forums.

In a 2008 report to a securities industry regulatory group, Kasich said he worked at OSU four hours a month. OSU also paid $20,000 a year to his longtime political ally Don Thibaut. Richard Stoddard, special assistant to current OSU President E. Gordon Gee, said the program’s goal was “to have a variety of interaction with students. All we had was positive feedback,” Stoddard said.