Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 2, 1993 TAG: 9305030269
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Tech numbers for next year: $3,812 in tuition and fees for in-state undergraduates; $4,400 for in-state graduate students; $9,680 for out-of-state undergraduates; $6,254 for out-of-state graduate students. That's up 7.7 to 7.9 percent from this year. For in-state students, Tech tuition is roughly 40 percent more than in 1989-90; for out-of-state students, roughly 70 percent more.
Even at that, Tech tuition and fees are only seventh highest in the state system. If room and board, relatively inexpensive at Tech, are figured in, Tech is only 12th highest.
The sharp jumps reflect the truth that policy decisions have consequences - whether the decisions are carefully considered or unwittingly made, hotly debated or quietly implemented.
Virginia's policy in recent years has been to cut - not just hold steady, cut - taxpayer support for what has been among America's premier systems of higher education. Per-student support has declined each year since 1989-90, from $3,967 per student then to a projected $3,188 for the fiscal year that begins July 1. If inflation were taken into account, of course, the plunge would be even more dramatic.
The policy is less the result of long-range strategy than a response to short-term crisis. The Wilder administration and the General Assembly more or less drifted into it, in the fiscal crunch that emerged in the late '80s. Other needs - prisons, Medicare, the elementary and secondary schools - have seemed more pressing.
Many states encountered similar fiscal troubles, but none was harder than Virginia on its colleges and universities. Between 1990-91 and the current academic year, state higher-education appropriations in America declined overall by 1 percent - itself thought to be unprecedented. In Virginia, appropriations dropped by 13 percent, the unkindest cut in the country.
The consequences of the Virginia policy aren't wholly bad.
Low tuition rates, for example, gave affluent students a taxpayer subsidy they didn't need; higher rates have reduced that subsidy. Tight budgets have stimulated everyone in Virginia's higher-education community, from the State Council of Higher Education to the smallest department on the smallest campus, to rethink how they do things. By raising out-of-state tuition rates to more than the actual cost of educating out-of-state students, Virginia's colleges and universities have become net importers of material as well as intellectual capital.
But higher tuition rates put non-affluent students in a squeeze, particularly those on a monetary borderline who get little or no benefit from expanded financial-aid programs. If financial considerations (say, the need to live at home) compel talented students to attend schools less suited to their needs, undertaking courses of study less suited to their interests and career goals, it is a form of inefficiency.
Moreover, higher tuition and other revenues at Tech and elsewhere have compensated for less than half the reduction in tax support. This may have the salutary effect of compelling an end to outmoded programs, but it also freezes development of new programs for new times. Over the long run, too, you can't expect to recruit and retain first-rate faculty with second-rate salaries and third-rate student-teacher ratios.
Nor can you expect to indefinitely keep attracting out-of-state students - 25 percent of the enrollment at Tech - who're willing to pay above-cost tuition and fees and thereby subsidize the education of their classmates from Virginia. They come because of Virginia colleges' reputation for quality. Trouble is, while reputations built on history rather than current reality may linger for a while, they don't last forever.
by CNB