THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 30, 1996 TAG: 9601300003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 40 lines
Now that the Supreme Court is ruling on the constitutionality of state support for single-sex higher education, specifically in the case of Virginia Military Institute, the next question to be answered is: If single-sex education is to be publicly financed, how much should the state pay to support schools which deny entrance to more than half of our population regardless of physical or intellectual fitness?
Virginia taxpayers may be interested to know that according to the State Council for Higher Education, VMI receives the fourth highest level of state funding per student among all four-year colleges and universities in the commonwealth. (Two of the top four recipients are Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Virginia, which house medical schools.) In addition, VMI state support per student is 18 percent higher than the average state allotment.
In this era of restructuring of higher education we are calling upon our state colleges and universities to weed out redundant programs, and yet VMI has been able to support a ``separate but equal'' leadership program at Mary Baldwin College.
Funding levels for higher education have fallen dramatically over the past decade. It is now time for Virginia taxpayers to examine the distribution of those funds to ensure that the best interests of our sons and daughters, as well as the commonwealth, are begin advanced.
MICHELLE ALBERT VACHRIS
Assistant professor
Economics and finance
Christopher Newport University
Virginia Beach, Jan. 18, 1996 by CNB