ROANOKE TIMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 25, 1995                   TAG: 9504250088
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium


NO EASY SOLUTIONS FOR COLLEGE COSTS

A co-worker walked up at the office water fountain the other day with a message to me from her husband:

In 1977, you could go to New River Community College for $8.50 per credit hour. It was the last year of what sounds now like the equivalent of nickel loaves of bread: Twelve or more credit hours cost a flat $100.

If you enroll in New River Community College for the summer session, you'll pay $46.65 per credit - $156 per credit hour if you're out of state. The in-state rate is $1.35 a credit hour higher than last year, said a community college spokeswoman. But everybody knows the cost of college shot up during the budget crunch of the early '90s recession when the state cut funding. It hasn't come back down.

Virginia Tech is hustling to increase out-of-state enrollments. A university that had been known as one of the best bargains around has pushed out-of-state tuition and fees to over $13,000, including room and board. As tuition went up, the number of students from outside Virginia at Tech steadily dropped by more than 500 students since the early '90s. It'll cost the school $3.6 million next year.

In my travels as a reporter, I've only once run into a Tech undergraduate who took about a year off, worked, and established Virginia residency so she could qualify for in-state tuition. Most aren't willing to do that - and Virginia law apparently isn't designed to encourage them to. Folks on campus talk about out-of-state students they know who leave midyear - who aren't included in the 500-student loss, figured at the opening of the fall semester.

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, held a news conference several days ago, warning that cuts to student financial aid would be debated in Congress at the beginning of May. Commonly used programs such as federal Stafford loans, wherein the government pays loan interest while the student is in school, are threatened.

When you consider what young people without college educations can look forward to in the way of jobs, you have to wonder what Congress is thinking.

In a speech to newspaper editors earlier this month, Duke University President Nannerl O. Keohane reported that 40 percent of his school's undergraduates receive financial aid. The university itself contributes $21.5 million from its operating budget to student financial aid, an increase of 434 percent from 1985. The point? To give bright lower- and middle-class class kids a shot at an education.

Everyone's talking about the cost of college, telling war stories about how much cheaper it was back in their day. They also wonder how in the heck they're ever going to send their own kids to college. I look at what my own family paid not so very long ago to send me to a private university. It seemed like a lot of money at the time, but now you could buy a nice house for what an education there costs. You can bet Mom and Dad wouldn't be picking up the tab at today's prices.

I don't have any brilliant answers, other than to suggest that everyone may look back in 10 years at the restructuring shifts under way on campuses, and realize that change, even with pain, was good. Maybe, despite the pain, colleges can more sharply direct their efforts. Maybe they'll find money to spend on more scholarships and aid, rather than more and more under-used programs.

For now, I've started a new tradition in my own family: When one of my nieces or nephews starts school, I send a check for $50, write a letter telling them I'm proud of them, urge them to study hard and enjoy school - and to put this money in a savings account for college.

Maybe they'll be able to buy a notebook or two with it someday.



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