A bill recently introduced in the General Assembly would require that 80 percent of students at state public universities come from Virginia. Sponsored by Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax), the legislation calls for a 1.3 percent yearly increase in the proportion of Virginians to out-of-state students until the goal of 80 percent is attained.
Approximately 65 percent of students at the College of William and Mary currently reside in the state of Virginia, the result of a tacit understanding with the state legislature. The ratio of in-state to out-of-state students is technically left to the discretion of individual universities.
Albo was inspired to propose the bill by the story of a young man in his constituency who was rejected from the University of Virginia despite having a 4.0 grade point average. He recalled a time when “normal people could get in” top Virginia universities. Albo, a graduate of U.Va., was accepted with a 3.8 high school GPA.
As a public official, Albo said he can best serve his constituency by ensuring that Virginia taxpayers have the opportunity to send their children to Virginia state schools. According to Albo, the College is “the biggest offender.” He noted that around 35 percent of College students come from out-of-state, an improvement, he said, from the peak of nearly 40 percent in recent years.
The College’s finances are particularly poor this year after the state cut $14.6 million from the budget. Based on tuition fees, Albo’s proposal would have a further negative financial effect on the College, holding everything else constant.
According to the College’s website, out-of-state undergraduates currently pay roughly $29,326 in tuition and fees per year, while in-state students pay about $10,246. Increasing the proportion of in-state students would mean lower yields from tuition.
Albo argues that state universities have several possible solutions to the financial challenge. They could, he said, “raise tuition for everybody.” Alternatively, he argued they could expand the total size of their student bodies, thereby maintaining the present number of out-of-state students.
Albo suggested that current patterns of university spending are misguided, noting the current emphasis on highly paid professors and new construction.
“[Virginia public universities] are not spending their money the way I want them to spend their money,” he said.
Although several past bills designed to fix the in-state/out-of-state ratio have failed in the General Assembly, Albo expressed optimism that his bill would succeed. He especially focused on the fact that this is the first time the state government has attempted to increase the percentage of in-state students incrementally.
In the case of some universities, the goal of 80 percent would not be reached for about 10 to 14 years , according to Albo. Nevertheless, he acknowledged that Virginia universities would attempt to block the bill, saying that the effort “is going to be an uphill battle for sure.”
Albo feels, however, that the legislation would meet the needs of his constituency.
“The citizens have told me that they want their money spent on getting more access to colleges,” he said. “For the last 15 years, I’ve been trying to get these schools to let in more state kids, and it’s just not happening.”
Albo does not believe that his bill would have a negative effect on the renown of Virginia’s public universities, which are among the best in the nation.
“You couldn’t possibly hurt their reputations,” he said, stating that top Virginia universities could easily fill their freshman classes with exceptionally qualified Virginians. “The problem is that there are lots of qualified students who can’t get in the door.”
Economics professor David Feldman, who specializes in higher education economics, doesn’t share Albo’s optimistic view of the legislation. Feldman argued the financial difficulties posed by the bill.
“The smaller the fraction of the student population that is from out-of-state, the less that we can do with that out-of-state population to solve our financial problems,” he said.
Feldman also said that the out-of-state tuition can only be raised so high before the university ceases to be competitive.
However, Feldman drew more attention more to the potential effect on the student body.
“The problem with ratcheting [the proportion of in-state students] up to 80 percent is that you reduce the likely quality of the pool of students who are here,” he said.
Feldman also noted that the nationwide applicant pool is necessarily more diverse than that of the state of Virginia alone.
“The talent pool from which we draw would shrink,” he said. “We would take a substantial hit to the quality of the institution.”
According to Feldman, there is another troubling consequence, the change in ratio “would also affect the willingness of truly good students to want to come here.”
The bill will face some opposition, Feldman said, recalling previous attempts by the legislature to impose set proportions of in-state to out-of-state students on Virginia universities.
“I suspect that the state universities that are selective should be able to beat this one back as well,” he said. “We have some friends in the state legislature.”
Albo’s legislation, House Bill No. 1696, has been filed and is awaiting hearing before the House Committee on Education.
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21 Comments
To the mother who
To the mother who complained about her child not being able to get in: no, I do not believe that most W&M students are happy to receive Virginia tax dollars. (“a university that is happy to accept Virginia tax dollars…”) In recent years, despite only getting 15% of our budget from Richmond, the state legislature has taken to dictating to the school on a number of issues. Remember the Sex Workers Art Show? Despite the fact that NO TAXPAYER MONEY went to fund that particular event, Richmond (and a number of Virginia residents) sought to exert control over the College on that particular occasion. The partisanship was hardly veiled at that time.
It would be one thing if W&M received more like 40% from Richmond, but it doesn’t. If you noticed all the comments on this article, a number of people wish that the College would privatize – after all, it hasn’t always been state-owned.
As for your daughter’s situation, I’m sorry. Hopefully this situation teaches her that you can’t always get everything you want. There is a reason why you apply to colleges, rather than just running down a checklist of requirements. Have you stopped to realize what W&M would be like if every person from NoVa with a similar resume was admitted? So much for diversity, in that hypothetical…
Then there are people like me. I am from New York, and my high school resume was probably not as impressive as your daughter’s. Why? Because my school simply didn’t have the same resources as many schools in NoVa; most of my high school peers went on to a local community college, or some other local state college – but New York state schools do not hold a candle to Virginia’s, except for perhaps Geneseo and Binghamton. So, just as a matter of fairness, you can’t expect that every person with a certain resume deserves to get into the school of their choice – you need to take into account those applicants who managed to compile an impressive background despite not having the same opportunities as people in more urban and suburban areas with good schools.
When the College is getting
When the College is getting what, less than 15% of its operating budget from the Commonwealth, Albo is saying the citizens want their kids to have the choice to go to a state school of their choice?
Not only is it absurd that Richmond continues to dictate to the College when it’s contributing so little, but it just doesn’t make any sense. What happens if this bill passes, and his constituents send all their kids off to UVA and W&M – and then those schools’ rankings go down. Will they be willing to have a tax increase to counteract this effect? Will they start sending their kids elsewhere?
It sounds like Albo’s complaining constituents need to be taught some hard facts about life – it isn’t always fair, and you can’t always get exactly what you want.
Did it not occur to Albo
Did it not occur to Albo that this kid from Fairfax probably attended a high school with weighted grades? When Albo was in school, the grade inflation in high school wasn’t like today’s. A 4.0 with access to a wide variety of weighted AP or IB classes isn’t that high…
“I think we all have
“I think we all have noticed that there are at least a few Virginia students at the College who clearly do not belong here.”
This is clearly the case now. What will happen if we reduce our standards even further for in-state students? This is a very scary time to be at the whim of the General Assembly. Time to privatize!
Also,
Also, http://conview.state.va.us/whosmy.nsf/main?openform is where you can find email addresses for your legislators. I’ve already sent my emails.
http://www.petitiononline.co
http://www.petitiononline.com/vtuition/petition.html
It may not be much, but it’s something.
So Albo’s amendment
So Albo’s amendment passed the in the House, and now it goes to the conference committee. W&M’s about to get a lot dumber.
I agree with you guys that
I agree with you guys that W&M would be better served as a private university—I just hope they wait until after I graduate to make that transition.
That being said, as recently as last Saturday Provost Feiss said that he and the rest of the administration have no intention of becoming a private institution.
soccerguy315 is right —
soccerguy315 is right — all Virginians should be writing their delegates and senators regarding this issue. However, I also urge out-of-state students to do the same. Tell them why you chose to come to Virginia, and why maybe you wouldn’t have had the chance to come here if W&M were forced to have 80% of its student body be in-state. There are plenty of arguments and perspectives that could persuade them. If this bill is passed, we all lose. A degree from the College will mean less, and we will have to watch the College of our fathers suffer a slow and humiliating decline.
I can’t tell you how
I can’t tell you how enraged I was when I read this article. W&M should go private. Right. Now.
In an apparent slap in the face, the legislature is trying to FURTHER reduce our funds by eliminating a large source of our tuition money: out of state students. I’m an out of stater, and it still kills me that I pay $20,000+ per year to go here while a kid in my freshman hall got PAID to attend. He literally got a $600 check in the mail from “scholarship overpayment”. The legislator himself has even said his bill would financially hurt VA state colleges. This proposal is completely FUBAR. It is my firm belief that if this measure passes, which is not inconceivable for the hacks in the VA Assembly, but if it does, W&M will soon be the next ODU or GMU if it doesn’t go private. All this is really reassuring to a graduating senior that will rely on W&M’s reputation in the future.
I hope everyone from VA
I hope everyone from VA reading this will email this guy, and their own state rep and voice your opposition.
I mean, honestly I don’t think this will get any votes…
As exepcted. The General
As exepcted. The General Assembly is full of rednecks.
Also I can’t be the only
Also I can’t be the only one who misread the headline as “WM may be 80 percent Virgins”
When I saw the “R” next
When I saw the “R” next to Albo’s name my immediate thought was that whatever bill he was introducing was going to be an egregiously fucking stupid idea, but I tried to reserve my judgement until I finished the article. Turns out it is, in fact, an egregiously fucking stupid idea.
“[Virginia public
“[Virginia public universities] are not spending their money the way I want them to spend their money,” he said.
The way he so “delicately” words this phrase says alot about his character. (things like “what a jackass”).
I’ve never heard of a
I’ve never heard of a more effective way to destroy the progress the College has made in building its reputation these past few decades. If this is not a good reason for W&M to be private again, I don’t know what is.
This guy is a complete
This guy is a complete idiot. We cannot fill a class with high quality Virginians—it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that requiring 80% of students to come from a state of 8 million people rather than a nation of 300 million will breed less quality than just 65%. Already the percentage is too high—the quality of admitted students from Virginia does NOT match the quality of the out-of-state students, and anyone who is being honest will admit that. Maybe if the state of Virginia did actually make a reasonable financial contribution (it is nowhere near 80% or even 65%) to the College then they would have an argument. The College shouldn’t want normal people like Albo to go here, we want better than normal people (although from his absurd logic and obvious political hackery, it more likely that he is below normal). It is genuinely scary that the morons in the Virginia Assembly control the fate of the College, because in one fell swoop they could entirely destroy the quality of the institution that took 300 years to create.
Delegate…senator…whateve
Delegate…senator…whatever the hell you Virginians call Mr. Albo, is clearly out of touch with the problems facing the College and universities nationwide. How would making 80% of the student body Virginian benefit the College. At a certain point, would they not be accepting severely less qualified students by virtue of their citizenship and rejecting qualified applicants because they come from different states. I think we all have noticed that there are at least a few Virginia students at the College who clearly do not belong here.
To Albo’s second point, that the College could simply raise tuition on “everyone”. Out of state students already pay nearly $40,000 to go here. Raising that price tag would make the College even less attractive to out of state students than it is already. But maybe that’s Albo’s point – scare away out of state students from applying so dumb Virginians can get in.
And his final point, that a lot of qualified students “can’t get in the door.” I’m sorry, but a 4.0 GPA does not buy you automatic admission into a top university, nor should it. Admissions officers look for more than GPA – they also look at test scores, letters of rec and essays. It’s too bad this kid was one dimensional enough to blow four years in high school getting a 4.0 and then not get into UVA, but there were apparently other reasons for his rejection. Maybe he wasn’t preppie enough.
Does this man realize that
Does this man realize that the acceptance rate for in-state students is TWICE as high as for out-of-state students? This proposal would certainly hurt the quality of students admitted. If we wanted better students, we would allow more out-of-state students.
Also, his constituents are not paying the bill here. They hold the reins but cannot even fully subsidize the costs of in-state students’ discounted education. The state will be paying, after the recent cuts, only around 15% of our operating budget, why should they be able to make harmful decisions like these?
Let me give you the
Let me give you the perspective of a Virginia parent whose super qualified kid was denied a place at W&M, which was her first choice. Have any of the commentators on this blog faced the disappointment and sadness of a child who did everything possible to be one of the best students in the state and succeeded, only to be denied admission?
My daughter was one of those Fairfax county kids who already have a strike against them because of the GPA grading here (have to score 94 to even get an A, no GPA weight increase for all her honors courses, etc.). She still managed a GPA of 3.94, including straight A’s in SIX AP courses, four of them taken in her senior year alone. Her SAT score was 1450. Outside activities they tell you are important? She was a Gold Award Girl Scout (like Eagle Scout), pitcher on the varsity Softball Team, President of one honor society and officer in another, involved in other organizations and an accomplished violin player in the orchestra. She is studying physics, a field where women are underrepresented, and expressed this in her application.
In short, she did everything in her power to earn a spot at an elite Virginia institution, and I think has every qualification that is requested and that they tell you is important: yet she was still was denied a place at W&M. Do you know what that does to a kid’s sense of self worth? They find it hard to accept that the real reason they were rejected was not about them personally, but that they were caught up in a numbers game, one where there is a hard limit on students who have every qualification and who worked their butt off to get them, because they just don’t generate enough cold hard cash, or fit a favored ethnic diversity profile (one kid from her school with a much lower GPA, no activities, and who had withdrawn from AP courses because they were “too hard” was accepted at W&M with this qualification, but that’s another story).
So I plan to work to help Dave Albo in any way I can to put a reasonable limit on non-Virginian students at schools that Virginian’s are taxed to support. Maybe W&M will have to slow down on building new buildings, or would have to put some kind of reasonable lid on expenses that seem to grow with no restraint year after year, or increase tuition somewhat for in-state students. But I can’t believe that having only 1 in 5 kids from out of state instead of 1 in 3, in a university that is happy to accept Virginia tax dollars and that purports to benefit the state as part of its mission, will cause irreparable harm to W&M. What I do know is that kids who deserve better are being harmed, and it is not right.
Wait, I hope there’s some
Wait, I hope there’s some thought in this before supporting Mr. Albo because I have a brother, who applied to UVM in the late 80’s and was wait-listed for the reasons you and Mr. Albo are fighting to adopt. His application status was not unlike your daughters. He studied at a private – all-boys – school and was highly qualified for any top college. His story goes against whatever good Mr. Albo is professing to accomplish. My brother’s final denial was based on so many other young pre-med students that had applied in-state that year. His application was sent to the end of the line on account of those applying in-state. Much to our surprise, as it turns out, I confirmed this with a director of athletic’s who I new well and asked to look into it. His comment was “if he had only applied undeclared he would have been accetped” but because “there were far to many in-state students appliying pre-med he was wait-listed and denied”. I therefore, will wish you well in your endeavors but I ask you to think twice or three times as I to have a daughter who finishes her senior year in 2010 and may apply to W&M. I also wish to commend Mason Watson for a helpful and insightful article.