McDonnell seeks $100 million more for colleges

Gov. Bob McDonnell said Wednesday that he will seek an additional $100 million a year for higher education over the next biennial budget, to be used for "very specific policy goals" designed to increase enrollment, keep tuition down and make graduates more marketable.

McDonnell also will require each public school to set aside a portion of its general fund support for reallocation toward implementation of the goals approved by the General Assembly last session in the Higher Education Opportunity Act.

The funding reallocation will total about $34.7 million, or 3 percent, in fiscal 2013, and $57.8 million, or 5 percent, in 2014. The funds are to be released after the state approves each school's plan for containing costs and increasing the number of Virginians earning degrees, especially in high-demand fields of the sciences and health.

Such reallocation of state funding to "higher-value programs" is a preview of what other agencies can expect when his full budget recommendations are released Monday, he said.

Backed by private and public college presidents and students, the governor said his recommendations for higher education would reverse the decline in state support that has resulted in tuition doubling over the past decade. The students, from an advocacy group called Virginia21, have collected more than 5,000 signatures on a petition asking the governor and assembly to focus on college affordability.

In 2009-10, in-state students borrowed more than $650 million to pay for college, almost $100 million more than the year before, the group said. McDonnell said his proposal does not mandate what rates that boards of visitors will set for next year, but he expects to see "more downward pressure on tuition."

"I know a few of the people who serve on those boards now," he added.

McDonnell's recent appointments to university governing boards include Thomas F. Farrell II, chairman of the Governor's Higher Education Commission, which made many of the recommendations incorporated in the new act. Farrell, who spoke in support of the budget recommendations, was named to Virginia Commonwealth University's board.

McDonnell's budget will seek $6.4 million per year to increase financial assistance to students.

To aid students attending private schools, McDonnell will seek $5.8 million per year to increase the Tuition Assistance Grant award. That would increase the grants to Virginia students attending private, nonprofit schools in the state from $2,650 to $2,750.

A major goal of the higher education legislation is to increase the number of Virginians earning degrees from both public and private schools by an additional 100,000 over the next 15 years.

To encourage enrollment growth, the budget recommendation seeks $16.2 million per year to pay for the 8,200 students added at public institutions between the 2009 and 2010 academic years.

The legislation, also called the "Top Jobs" bill for its focus on economic stimulus, places a priority on degrees from STEM-H programs — science, technology, engineering, math and health.

McDonnell will seek $20.4 million per year as incentive funding to support efforts at public institutions to graduate students in less time than normal, especially if those students are in STEM-H majors and are from underrepresented groups based on age and income.

He also will propose a total of about $25.7 million per year to support other STEM-H initiatives as well as cancer and high-tech research. His recommendations would provide $25.5 million per year for base operating costs at public institutions. And he said he will remove a $10 million-per-year budget reduction that was to have been imposed on higher education budgets.

The state now spends about $1.2 billion from its general fund on higher education, Secretary of Education Laura Fornash said.