Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 26, 1995 TAG: 9502240053
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: G2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Of the roughly $400 million restored in the assembly's House-Senate conference budget, $50 million is for higher education. If the gamble works politically, perhaps it'll be because Virginians are aware that in just six years, the commonwealth has fallen from 28th to 43rd nationally in per-student higher-education funding. Because they know that tuition rates and class sizes have jumped. And because they understand that some of the longer-term effects of budget games are only now emerging.
Consider, for example, the story in last week's news columns about Virginia Tech biologist Greg Ferry.
Discoverer of a way to clean up a toxic compound high on the Environmental Protection Agency's list of worst offenders, Ferry isn't eager to leave Blacksburg after 19 years at Tech. But leaving he is, along with his $450,000 a year in research grants and his 10 research assistants thereby provided, for an offer from Penn State that Tech is in no position to counter.
No longer can Tech afford to play in the same academic league as a Penn State.
The departure of researchers like Ferry is also in accord with the view that higher education should focus exclusively on undergraduate education. The popularity of that view is understandable in light of the budget-policy decision to drive up the portion of college costs paid for by students themselves. But this view is dangerously blinkered, because higher education serves the commonwealth and citizenry in lots of ways.
Consider, too, the abandonment of plans for a New College of Global Studies at Radford University, another example of how budget pressures are degrading higher education in sometimes subtle ways.
Officially, the college, scheduled to open this coming fall, didn't fall victim to budget troubles. Allen's proposal to delete its funding was defended on the basis of administration doubts about the pedagogy envisioned for it. Rather than defy the governor, the university redid the plan, and asked the General Assembly to restore enough money for a related but less exotic international component for the existing College of Business and Economics.
But, in fact, budget pressures played a powerful role - by transforming the project from an enhancement into a threat for underfunded traditional programs, and by introducing an overly cautious bias against experimentation.
The Radford project was in the planning stages for years, and had been subjected to several layers of review and approval. Outcomes of new approaches are by definition less predictable than with older ways of doing things. But if you can't afford the cost of experimental failures, you 'll never enjoy the fruits of experimental successes.
The General Assembly's budget restorations may reduce further slippage. But they don't make up for ground already lost.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1995
by CNB