Despite Virginia's statewide budget crunch, almost no officials in state government or at the University say they want to end permanently the relationship between the state and higher education.
Even in tough financial times, when relations between government and school officials often are strained, support for privatization of the state schools is nearly non-existent among both top elected and University officials.
Privatization has "been mentioned, particularly over the last year," Board of Visitors Secretary Alexander "Sandy" Gilliam Jr. said. "The general reaction is, 'Absolutely not.'"
In contrast, some students find the idea of privatization appealing.
Second-year College student Mark Jensen said he would like to see the University go private to put an end to state-mandated tuition prices and admissions policies, among other regulations. Jensen also said there are a lot of strings attached to state funding.
"It seems like their money is really expensive," Jensen said.
If the University were to privatize, in-state students most likely would pay the same tuition as out-of-state students, an idea that some out-of-state students find appealing.
"It's hard to be paying double the amount for the same education," second-year College student Erin Tabolt said. Key policymakers, however, are not sympathetic to this case and have not really discussed going private.
At a Board meeting in October, "people talked about the importance of being public and about their sadness or disillusionment about the state's most recent financial disaster, but not about going private," University President John T. Casteen III said.
Nor are political leaders, regardless of partisan affiliation, talking about privatization.
"I've never heard it mentioned in the General Assembly," said state Del. Lacey Putney, I-19th, interim speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates and chairman of the House's Higher Education subcommittee.
Gov. Mark R. Warner also said privatization is not under consideration, saying in a conference call with representatives of college papers from around the state, "The idea gets floated every few years, but it never gets much support."
State and University officials argue against privatization for practical and philosophical reasons.
Opponents say privatizing a previously public university, or even a single school of a university, is not easy because of legal and financial constraints.
"The state owns the land and most of the buildings on campuses," said Fran Bradford, a spokesperson for the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.
Lawmakers are reluctant to support privatization because the state already has spent so much money supporting schools such as the University, said Republican State Sen. Russell Potts Jr., chairman of the Senate's Education and Health Committee.
"The Commonwealth has already invested millions and millions of dollars into this University," Potts said.
There also are legal limitations on possible privatization efforts, Potts said.
"With Virginia being a state institution, chartered as such, it would have to pass constitutional muster," he said.
The last time a public school in Virginia seriously considered privatization was in 1996, when the Virginia Military Institute considered forgoing state support rather than admitting women.
Ultimately, VMI's board of visitors decided to allow women to attend.
"One vote the other way and they would have gone private," Putney said.
Just because VMI nearly attempted to go private, however, does not mean it is a viable option for the state's colleges and universities, he said.
"I have no idea what steps would be taken first," Putney said.
Likewise, University officials say privatization could be financially disastrous.
The University continues to receive $100 million a year in funds from the state even after the most recent round of budget cuts, and would have to find a way to replace these funds if it the University went private, University spokeswoman Louise Dudley said.
"Even $100 million is still a large amount of money," Dudley said.
Given the fact that the wholesale privatization of the University would require so much new funding, one alternative would be to privatize only a few of the University's individual schools.
Such a hybrid scheme exists at Cornell University, where four schools are contracted colleges that receive public funds, and nine schools are endowed private colleges.
Cornell also has a mix of public and private governance. At Cornell, the deans of the contracted colleges must be approved by the State University of New York's Board of Trustees, who themselves are appointed by the state's governor.
This serves to create a degree of public governance at the contracted colleges, said Henrik Dullea, Cornell's vice president for University Relations.
In contrast, only a small minority of the members of Cornell's own Board of Trustees are government officials or appointees, giving the university largely private management.
"It's not the neatest administrative arrangement in the world," Dullea said, but "it works very well."
Virginia officials also reject the possibility of partial privatization of state schools.
Putney said he opposes fundamentally changing Virginia's higher education system, which he views as the nation's best.
"There is nothing that better represents what the Commonwealth of Virginia really is than our colleges and universities," Putney said.
Both state and University officials are particularly opposed to privatization at the University, which is perhaps one of Virginia's most viable candidates for privatization because of its large private donor base.
Several officials said privatizing the University would go against Thomas Jefferson's vision of a University serving the public good.
"This University was founded as a public university with a public mandate," Dudley said.
Potts agreed with this perspective.
"Mr. Jefferson's University is the people's University," Potts said.
Although University and state officials do not consider privatization a practical or desirable option, schools must nonetheless deal with the new reality of scarce state funding.
This has led the University to encourage the Law School and the Darden School to seek financial self-sufficiency and to advocate the loosening of regulations coming from Richmond.
University officials are careful, however, to distinguish between these efforts and privatization, saying the changes will have no effect on the University's public governance.
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