Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 3, 1993 TAG: 9305030278
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACKIE WILKERSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The financial burden of a college education is increasing. For years, Virginia has had the reputation of providing a bargain, top-notch college education for its young people. However, at present, Virginia's public college tuition is among the 10 highest in the country.
The tuition at many Virginia state colleges has increased approximately 50 percent in the last four years, and a 10 percent increase is predicted for next year. Class size has dramatically increased, and classes are often unavailable or closed out to students.
The cost of college is having a major impact on families, often being the largest expense second only to the mortgage. A wave of additional students (65,000) is expected to hit Virginia colleges throughout the '90s.
Also consider that the state's four-year colleges accept very few transfers from community colleges, especially those from Southwest Virginia, according to Del. Ford Quillen.
Roanoke is the largest metropolitan area in Virginia - and, perhaps, in the United States - without a public four-year college or university. The trend across the country is for students to look for colleges close to home so they can save money by living at home while attending college.
Solutions being seriously, foolishly and immediately considered are:
The proposal by Virginia Tech and UVa (which was denied) to build a new college in Northern Virginia. How many colleges does Northern Virginia have? Think of the expense of purchasing expensive land and erecting a great number of buildings to be maintained. Why Northern Virginia?
Thankfully, Northern Virginia or Charlottesville and UVa are not the end of the earth as one comes across the state. Quality of people and land in Southwest Virginia is exceptional, and also deserving of recognition and the sending of tax dollars this way to educate our people.
To shift college faculty away from research projects and more toward the classroom. However, research is important to the nation's productivity, especially when competing in a global market and world economy. Innovation and creativity play a great role in a high-tech world, and college faculty time is a necessary part of research.
To have students pay what they would be paying at a state school and have the state make up the difference to allow students to attend a private college. Many taxpayers would object to their tax dollars being funneled into elite private schools, and not all students have the desire or the need to fit in with the clientele of the expensive private schools. (Money already is being allocated in the Virginia state budget for this plan.)
For the state to subsidize students to go out of state to college. Thus, we would be sending our tax dollars with them, and this makes the least sense of all possible solutions.
The "best-fit solution" is one being proposed by many in the Roanoke Valley, especially in excellent articles by Dan Frei, Larry Landrum and Buz Keene. This proposal is a combination of all proposals and would culminate in a no-dorm, public, four-year "urban college consortium" with various sites in Roanoke.
This college, Roanoke Urban University, perhaps, would be a system feeding and being fed by the community, drawing from such strengths as having Virginia Western already in place to be enlarged and the old Norfolk Southern office building available next to the proposed new conference center, which would have ties to Virginia Tech.
Keene ingeniously suggested an electronic cable system linking Virginia Tech to Roanoke, including an electronic library and links to existing area colleges. This could involve not only Tech and Virginia Western, but Radford, Roanoke, Hollins, the College of Health Sciences, National Business College, etc. Cooperation among the colleges, not competition, would serve all well, with the colleges allowing classes to be taken and credits counted among the "college consortium."
This would keep costs moderate and not duplicate services in place in the valley and surrounding area, but would pull together resources and share programs and specialties to the students' and valley's advantage.
The benefits would be tremendous. It would add a new economic base and create a larger economic umbrella for the Roanoke Valley. This would lend a much-needed energy, spirit and vitality to the area and increase the population, revenues, and buying and spending, and also utilize empty inner-city buildings. It could double or triple the economy and make it more desirable for businesses to locate in and around Roanoke and, hopefully, bring in more white-collar, as well as blue-collar, jobs.
Educating area students well for these job markets would enhance the chances of keeping our young people in Roanoke. It would allow people, young and old, to be able to afford a bachelor's degree and stay home to do so, especially those with families and/or those who need to continue to work. It would keep the tax dollars in the city and in the state.
What can you do? Contact your legislators, the Roanoke Valley Business Council, the Virginia Council for Higher Education, Roanoke and Salem councils and leaders. Perhaps this newspaper could do a survey or forum or the telephone company could allow a voice-mail response to the various ideas presented.
Supporting a four-year, public college in Roanoke would be giving ourselves a shot in the arm with assets we already have.
\ AUTHOR Jackie Wilkerson has taught ninth grade through graduate school in the Roanoke area, and is a mental-health clinician in the Cave Spring area and at Lewis-Gale Clinic.
by CNB