The state’s community colleges will increase tuition for next semester, and Virginia Commonwealth University plans to eliminate 91 jobs as the schools attempt to absorb multiple cuts in their budgets. The unusual, midyear tuition increase approved yesterday by the State Board for Community Colleges will add about $22 to the cost of a class and generate $10.7 million in revenue. That’s enough to offset about 42 percent of what the system is losing from the state this fiscal year.

A program that helps foster-care youths continue their education has received a $300,000 grant from the Virginia Tobacco Commission. The two-year grant to Great Expectations, an initiative of the state’s community colleges, will allow the program to be expanded to four community colleges in Southwest and southern Virginia. Mountain Empire, Patrick Henry, Southwest Virginia and Wytheville community colleges will establish transitional education programs next summer.

Two Virginia community colleges will receive $743,000 each from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of $1.78 million awarded the state to expand remedial education programs. The awards over the next three years will go to Danville Community College and Patrick Henry Community College in Martinsville. The remaining $300,000 will be used by the community college system for efforts to increase the college completion rates of low-income and minority students.

A coalition of business and education officials put Virginia politicians on notice yesterday that voters want the state to invest more in its colleges and universities. “The people of Virginia get it,“ said W. Heywood Fralin, chairman of the Virginia Business Higher Education Council and chief executive officer of Medical Facilities of America Inc.

Squeezing every penny out of personal budgets. Raising a family as a single parent. Working two jobs. Believe me, I understand every challenge that students at Virginia’s community colleges face today. Thirty years ago, I was in the same place. My mother raised my three younger siblings and me on her minimum-wage secretarial salary. Tuition for community college was $275, toward which I received only a $50 Pell Grant. To make ends meet, I pumped gas three nights a week and all day Saturday and Sunday. While today’s tuition and income levels are higher, that tough balancing act hasn’t changed.

The growing community-college population is getting younger, and more students are transferring to four-year institutions. As the job market becomes more technologically advanced and service-oriented and jobs become less permanent, community colleges are offering job-specific academic programs and training for more employers and employees.