Nearly 89 percent of members of the General Assembly have earned at least a bachelor's degree, ranking Virginia second among the states in the educational achievement of its lawmakers.
That's according to a report by The Chronicle of Higher Education, which undertook the study to examine whether college experiences have an impact on legislative priorities.
Chronicle editor Jeffrey J. Selingo said the study found that even where state legislatures are much more educated than the state populations they represent, attainment doesn't necessarily translate to higher-education support.
About 75 percent of nearly 7,400 state lawmakers have at least a bachelor's degree, with California edging Virginia at 90 percent. Not far behind is Nebraska, 88 percent; New York, 87 percent; and Florida, 86 percent.
Arkansas ranked at the bottom — almost 25 percent of its legislators had no college at all.
By contrast, 94 percent of the members of Congress and 28 percent of the adult population nationally have a bachelor's degree or higher. At 33.4 percent, Virginia is above the national average.
But the state's colleges and universities have been hit hard by budget cuts. According to the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, the General Assembly has reduced state support for public higher education by more than $400 million, or 27 percent, from fiscal 2010 to fiscal 2012.
Higher education has long been a state endeavor, Selingo said, but that relationship has been broken as the states cut back on support.
"At the same time state universities are under more scrutiny than ever from state lawmakers who question everything from how productive their faculty members are to the quality of the instruction going on in the classroom," he said.
That has led college officials to complain that state lawmakers don't understand higher education because they didn't earn a degree, or earned one from a private school, or that they give preferential treatment to their alma maters.
The Chronicle "findings didn't really bear out a lot of what we're hearing," Selingo said.
The study found that like most Americans, a majority of state legislators went to a public college, and most went to one in the state they represent.
About 53 percent of Virginia's 140 lawmakers — 40 senators and 100 delegates — went to colleges in the state, and most also attended public schools.
The University of Virginia has the highest representation, with 24 alumni in the General Assembly. The University of Richmond has 16 alumni; Virginia Tech, 14; and Virginia Commonwealth University, 12. The College of William and Mary and Old Dominion University have nine alumni, and Virginia Union, Virginia State and James Madison universities each have five, according to the report.
The Chronicle study is based on self-reported information from legislators, using data from Project Vote Smart, a nonpartisan political research group, and its own reporting.
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