After 5 years of cuts, colleges could get more from state

Credit: DEAN HOFFMEYER/TIMES-DISPATCH

Gov. Bob McDonnell's budget proposal would reward schools that have enrolled more in-state students.

By: Karin Kapsidelis | Richmond Times-Dispatch
Published: January 10, 2012

After five years of reductions totaling nearly $300 million, Virginia’s public colleges and universities are in line to see budgets that will be higher than the previous year, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia was told today.

On average the state’s public colleges and universities could see increases of nearly 7 percent from the state’s general fund for instructional costs under Gov. Bob McDonnell’s proposed budget, Dan Hix, SCHEV’s finance policy director, told the council

“Overall it’s a very good story,” Hix said in breaking down McDonnell’s spending plan for higher education.

McDonnell last month proposed allocating an additional $100 million per year in the next biennial budget for the state’s colleges and universities as an initial step toward implementing the Higher Education Opportunity Act adopted by the General Assembly last session.

The budget proposal would reward schools that have enrolled more in-state students -- one of the goals of the legislation – with $16.2 million. Of those funds, Virginia Commonwealth University would receive more than $2 million and the Virginia Community College System would get $7.1 million to account for actual enrollment growth in the 2010-11 academic year.

In other action, the council voted to make Peter A. Blake the agency’s new director. Blake, former vice chancellor of workforce development services for the Virginia Community College System, has acted as SCHEV’s interim Director since April 2011.

The council also heard a report it requested from the state attorney general’s office in the wake of the child-abuse scandal at Pennsylvania State University. The council was told there is no legal requirement that university employees must report suspected cases of child abuse or neglect.

However, two bills have been introduced addressing the issue.

(This has been a breaking news update. Read more in tomorrow's Richmond Times-Dispatch.)