Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 20, 1993 TAG: 9310200228
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
But Blacksburg Democrat Jim Shuler and Christiansburg Republican Nick Rush weren't biting. Both stuck to their standard answers on higher education, with some new twists.
The duo, running for the 12th District House of Delegates seat, answered questions before some 30 members of the Virginia Tech Faculty Senate, but only after its president chided the press for a series of articles about higher education published in the Roanoke Times & World-News and other newspapers last month.
David A. DeWolf, professor of electrical engineering, said he would allow coverage of the group's meetings, which have been open in the past, on a probationary basis.
One candidate later urged the professors to go out of their way to let the public know what they're doing and how budget cutbacks will affect their work.
Earlier Tuesday, Rush and Shuler, speaking before another education group, showed their differences on the issue of integrating women into Virginia Military Institute, which Rush opposes and Shuler favors.
At the Virginia Tech meeting, both Shuler, who received his undergraduate degree at Tech in the 1960s, and Rush, who is a high school graduate, seemed sympathetic to the professors' complaints, but not enough to back a general tax increase.
Shuler was blunt, saying, "I don't think anybody can get elected talking about raising taxes right now."
He said he would focus on finding savings in the penal system and by backing universal health care, which would eventually eliminate the federal Medicaid mandates now driving the state budget. Shuler said higher-education officials will have to find ways to cut costs.
Still, the public might support a tax increase if it considered institutions cost-effective and knew more of their work, Shuler said.
"You need to do the best public relations effort you can to overcome what's being perceived and what's being published about you," he said.
Rush said he knows from his post on the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors and from campaigning door-to-door that voters will not support higher taxes.
"It's really the will of the people," Rush said. "Until the government has cut all waste . . . they're not willing to throw more money at these problems."
Rush went back to his platform for a solution: savings from welfare reform and revenue from economic development to pay for higher education and other needs.
Shuler again voiced his opposition to tuition caps. Rush said tuition increases should be limited to the rate of inflation to keep college affordable. Moreover, he said, the jumps amount to an unfair tax increase on students and parents.
He conceded that if the state won't address the higher-education funding issue, taxes will eventually have to be raised so the burden isn't placed on parents and students alone.
On VMI, Shuler said that because it is state-supported, women should be admitted. Rush said single-sex education is important and defeat for VMI on the issue could hurt private women's schools in Virginia whose students receive public-funded tuition assistance grants.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB