Higher education has slipped as a national priority even though it is key to both the country's economic recovery and its standing as a world leader, four former governors said yesterday.
"I think that higher education is at risk, and that message is not being communicated clearly and sufficiently enough," former Virginia Gov. Gerald L. Baliles told a coalition of business and education leaders at a daylong conference at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.
Baliles was joined by former Virginia Gov. George Allen and former Govs. Robert L. Ehrlich of Maryland and Michael F. Easley of North Carolina in a panel discussion sponsored by the Virginia Business Higher Education Council.
"We have to make clear the connection between investment and return . . . [and] in fact between higher education and the future of this country," said Baliles, a Democrat who served as Virginia's governor from 1986 to 1990.
Allen, a Republican who served as governor from 1994 to 1998, said state government needs to make higher education a priority to ensure "a level playing field" so that all Virginians have access to quality education and the chance to compete.
"That is the essence of responsibility in a free society," said Allen, who served in the U.S. Senate from 2001 to 2007.
The panel discussion was part of the Virginia Summit on Economic Competitiveness & Higher Education, which earlier heard from Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and gubernatorial candidates R. Creigh Deeds and Bob McDonnell.
Support for higher education transcended political affiliations and has public support as well. But Ehrlich, a Republican who served as Maryland's governor from 2003 to 2007, cautioned that it's "never a front-burner" issue when it comes to finding tax revenue to back that support.
"It's always going to be a moving target," agreed Easley, a Democrat who served as North Carolina's governor from 2001 to 2009. He added that economics and education are so intertwined that "you can't talk about one without the other."
Allen pointed to tuition freezes instituted when he was governor as one method of making college affordable.
But Ehrlich said tuition freezes are always controversial and have "a very down side" that encourages schools to seek more out-of-state students who pay higher rates.
"You're just squeezing your system," he said.
Baliles termed the use of tuition increases to make up for the loss of state funding as "one of the fastest-growing special-use taxes in the nation."
In effect, he said, that strategy is "simply shifting the power" of taxation from the legislature to boards of visitors.
Contact Karin Kapsidelis at (804) 649-6119 or kkapsidelis@timesdispatch.com.
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