There is much to commend in last week's report issued by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, in which it outlined its annual budget recommendations to the governor and the General Assembly. Among the suggestions put forth in the proposal are an infusion of nearly $54 million into undergraduate financial aid, 2 percent faculty salary increases and a funding target of $2.7 billion for capital projects. These budget priorities all support what should be the overriding principles of higher education policy, both in Virginia and elsewhere: expanding access and maintaining academic quality.
Yet the council's recommendations will mean little unless the state government reverses a historical trend of disinvestment in higher education. It is particularly important that the state government do so during this budget cycle given its enactment of the Virginia Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2011, which codified Gov. Bob McDonnell's goal of conferring an additional 100,000 degrees during the next 15 years. Without the funding necessary to implement crucial aspects of the council's plan, however, Virginia either will fall short of this objective or in achieving it will degrade the value of the additional degrees it confers.
The council's proposed funding increase for financial aid is vital to ensuring that more Virginians are able to afford college degrees. According to a report the council issued earlier this year, per capita income in the commonwealth increased by only 1.7 percent between fiscal years 2010 and 2011; at the same time, the cost of attending four-year public universities rose 10.6 percent. The Institute for College Access & Success documented the effects of this trend in a 2009 report which found that 55 percent of students at four-year Virginia public universities graduate with debt, carrying an average load of $19,675. In light of these circumstances and the council's proposal to enact 3 to 5 percent annual tuition increases during the coming years, lawmakers must bolster financial aid so the goal of conferring additional degrees is not short-circuited by higher education's price tag.
Merely graduating more students is not a worthwhile policy objective, however, unless academic quality is protected. Therefore, the council was correct to identify increased faculty compensation and physical expansion and maintenance as corollaries of the Virginia Higher Education Opportunity Act. Unfortunately, some prominent state policymakers have already expressed disagreement with the first of these propositions. "The faculty is bloated. They rarely teach a full load," Del. Bob Tata, a Virginia Beach Republican who chairs the House Education Committee, said in a recent Virginia Business article. "In my next life, I always thought I wanted to be a lobbyist. But now I want to come back as a college professor - sit on a desk and pontificate and collect $100,000."
Yet this ignores the fact that faculty salaries are highly disparate and professors in certain departments tend to make well less than $100,000 annually. Moreover, it overlooks the need for Virginia colleges and universities to compete with both public and private institutions in other states that offer better compensation. Already, the University, which pays the highest average salary to full-time professors among any university in the commonwealth, has fallen behind peer institutions such as the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Michigan.
It also is essential that the physical quality of the state's colleges and universities be maintained. As University students are finding out from the inadequate space currently available at Newcomb Dining Hall and in the first-year dormitories, one's quality of life while in college hinges on the regular expansion and renovation of major campus facilities. Thus, the capital budget put forth by the council also must be adopted in the next state budget cycle.
Of course, the commonwealth has limited resources and cannot promote higher education at the expense of other responsibilities such as health care services, public safety and transportation. But for the state government to remain credible, it cannot abandon the goals it set earlier this year in the Virginia Higher Education Opportunity Act by ignoring the well reasoned recommendations offered by the council.
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