Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 6, 1995 TAG: 9511060032
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
David Barker set aside his pencil and thought for a minute.
A contract to limit tuition raises for four years?
"It seems like a good idea to me," he said.
But Virginia Tech, at $7,207 per year for in-state students - including room and board - already is a pretty good deal, said Barker, an electrical engineering student.
"I'm more interested in maintaining the quality of education than [finding] the cheapest place in town."
There you have one opinion on an item that's simmering quietly on higher education's back burner.
Following leapfrogging college tuition increases in the past five years, Gov. George Allen wants to establish a four-year contract with freshmen. Also studied at the behest of the General Assembly, the contract would promise that tuition and mandatory fees won't rise more each year than the rate of inflation during four years of undergraduate studies. In a way, it puts into law Allen's 2-year-old tuition cap that essentially does the same thing.
Aside from some universities' concerns about additional administrative duties, the main drawback to the plan appears to be simple: What if the schools need more money than the rate of inflation allows? University and state higher education officials are looking for assurances that additional state funding will be available.
"If there's a compelling need for funding for new programs or improvements in the quality of education at the school, then the board of visitors sets the tuition, taking those things into account," said Robert Lauterberg, Allen's director of planning and budget.
In other words, once the program is launched, nothing formal stops boards from raising tuition rates for entering freshmen - those signing the contract for the first time - higher than inflation. After students arrive, the school is locked in to the contract.
"Our goal will be to make this proposal work, and make it workable for the schools. We're going to allocate money for higher education in the General Assembly session," Lauterberg said.
If funding assurances are in place, then the proposal will fly with the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia, according to its chairman. Current plans call for a reassessment of the contract in four years.
"I think it's worth trying," said Val McWhorter, the council's chairman. "There were rapid increases in tuition over the past five years to the point I think parents were becoming sort of overpowered by them. I think this is an idea worth trying, to let people catch their breath.
"We do not view this as a means of reducing quality at the schools."
Virginia Tech instituted a nonbinding version of the cap last spring after administrators looked at the bottom line and found a $12 million shortfall that was compounded in part by a sharp drop-off in out-of-state-enrollments. The Virginia Tech Pledge went out to every freshman home last year, promising the school would do everything it could to keep tuition raises to the inflation rate.
But it's not a law.
If the Allen proposal became law, "it gives us a lot less wiggle room," Tech President Paul Torgersen said. "On the other hand, if the governor proposes a contract, and if the General Assembly is party to it, to some extent [that] puts an obligation on them."
Students interviewed last week said the contract sounded like a good idea. But they also said that all university tuitions are so high - and Tech's, by comparison, fairly low - that the governor's plan doesn't make much difference to them.
"Either way, I'm going to school here," said Eric Famisan, a civil engineering major from Newport News.
Carol Harmon, a sophomore from Sandston, predicted that if the university can't raise tuition as high as it wants, it'll find the funding elsewhere.
"They still can find ways. They always do," she said.
Greg Juda, a sophomore from Harrisonburg, gets grants and the like for his tuition.
A contract to control tuition increases?
"I don't really care, because the government pays for my schooling," he said.
by CNB