Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 14, 1993 TAG: 9307140209
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: STAUNTON LENGTH: Medium
"The need for increased state support for higher education must be recognized," Don Finley, the council's associate director for finance and facilities, wrote in a report to council.
The $223 million represents about a half of the state support that has been lost since 1990, when the state began slashing the budgets of state agencies to make up for a shortfall in revenue.
Universities have been authorized to raise tuition as a way of offsetting the budget cuts, but the council said Tuesday that further increases should be low ones.
". . . We sense that Virginia's citizens and their elected representatives feel higher education needs to `take a breather' from double-digit tuition increases,' " the report says.
The state's tuition and fees have increased by 44 percent since 1990.
Tuition relief and student aid make up the largest part of the budget priorities. Money also will be used for the first half of a four-year plan to bring faculty salaries in line with peer institutions.
Salaries at many of the state's colleges rank below those of 60 percent of their peer schools. This plan will move them so that only 40 percent are higher.
The state council held off on endorsing construction projects that would require students to pay fees for the next 20 years - among them, a student recreation facility at Virginia Tech and a student union at Radford.
Members, following up on the staff's recommendation, are waiting until more is known about tuition and fees for the next few years.
In other business, council members voted to endorse - in theory - a plan that would include a pilot program for community colleges and four-year private schools.
The program, which would begin in 1994 if the governor deemed it appropriate and had funding available, would use state money to offset part of the cost of education for community college students transferring to a four-year private college.
Gordon Davies, director for the council, said he did not know how many students would be interested in the program, but estimated the state's contribution at about $3,700 per student.
The state contributes that much per student to public colleges, but those colleges may run out of room for students by the end of the decade, when an additional 65,000 students are expected to enter the college system.
A partnership between community colleges and private colleges was mentioned in a plan released last year by the council and forwarded to the General Assembly. A pilot plan would probably include Averett College and St. Paul's College, where there are no public colleges nearby.
by CNB