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Legislation to make it fairer to get into The University of Virginia and other higher education institutions around the nation, by banning preferential admissions based on family alumni and donors, is working its way through Richmond and Washington. But these efforts address only part of the problem of making university education more affordable and accessible to Virginia’s rural communities. State Democratic Senators Schuyler VanValkenburg and Jeremy McPike and Delegate Dan Helmer are bringing such bills forward in Richmond, and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va) has co-sponsored a similar federal bill with Sen. Todd Young (R-IN). “A student’s acceptance into a college should not hinge on whether their parents attended that school or donated a large sum of money,” said Kaine. “This legislation would help bring more fairness to the higher education admissions process, and ensure that first-generation and low-income students are not put at a disadvantage because of their parents’ educational histories or incomes.” However, since Virginia funds its universities at 83% of the national average, state universities compensate for the shortfall by admitting more out-of-state and foreign students who pay much higher tuitions. As a result, fewer lower income students living in Virginia, including in rural areas, are admitted. Pell grants, awarded to students from households that earn less than $50,000 annually, are a good gauge of the proportion of low-income students in a school. By that measure, according to U.S. News and World Report, two of our flagship state schools, University of Virginia and William and Mary, have 15% and 12% respectively, while neighboring University of Maryland has 19% and West Virginia University has 22%, and major schools in states like California have 28 and 30%. Republican politicians like to argue that increased spending on universities just benefits the wealthy elite and therefore rural residents are better off getting a tax cut. In fact, the opposite is true — tax cuts benefit mainly the wealthy, while cutting spending on higher education just makes college tuition unaffordable for qualified rural students. Our public universities shouldn't just be for the wealthy elite. A pattern of cutting taxes that largely benefit the wealthy, instead of funding higher education, have the net effect of keeping qualified rural students from working families from achieving their best potential by making universities more expensive and the domain of the well-to-do. To learn more, check out this Rappahannock News article and this U.S. News article.
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