COMMONWEALTH
of VIRGINIA
William B.
Allen COUNCIL OF HIGHER EDUCATION (804) 225-2137
Director James Monroe Building, 101 North
Fourteenth Street, Richmond, Va. 23219 FAX (804) 225-2604
TDD
(804) 371-8017
http://www.schev.edu
to Winchester-Frederick County Chamber of
Commerce
General Assembly Building
Richmond, Virginia
January 19, 1999
© 1999 W. B. Allen
Good afternoon.
Welcome to Richmond. I
appreciate this opportunity to talk with you, along with my esteemed colleagues. I am certain that Secretary Ybarra and
Secretary DuVal believe, as I do, that spending time with Virginia’s citizens,
particularly with community and business leaders such as yourselves, is one of
the most valuable, most important uses of our time. We thank you for finding time in your schedules to meet
with us.
The fact that I am sharing the
agenda this afternoon with Secretary Ybarra and Secretary DuVal leads me to
ponder connections between and among transportation, education, and economic
development. Education and
transportation are, of course, two of the most important factors that
contribute to the economic development of a region or state. The importance of both factors is emphasized
in The Virginia Strategy: Prosperity into
the New Century, the plan for economic development generated under Governor
Gilmore’s direction and just released by Secretary DuVal’s office.
Some other connections that I want
to touch on briefly might best be illustrated by two anecdotes. There is a
learning process that precedes our making use of the transportation system and
some of us learn more quickly than do others.
I asked a friend recently how long it took his young son to learn to
drive. “About two and a half cars” was
his response. We parents also find that
going off to college typically generates a request from the youngster for a new
car. Another friend of mine tried to
convince his daughter that she could manage with a used vehicle by noting the
large number of older cars in one of the parking lots at her campus. She quickly pointed out that this was a
faculty-only parking lot!
But there are other, more relevant connections between
transportation and education, as well as economic development, which I’d like
to use as a jumping off point for my short comments to you today. Let’s start by recognizing outright that
these three sectors have strong records of success in Virginia. The just-released plan for economic
development notes that because of its strategic location, “Virginia is an
international transportation cross-roads” and boasts a world-class network of
ports, highways, rail service and airports.
George Washington, who originally planned such a network to make
Virginia central to United States commerce, would be proud. Virginia is also
acclaimed for its system of higher education – long acknowledged as one of the
best in the nation. We find external
recognition of the quality of Virginia’s colleges and universities in the consistent
high ratings that a large number of them receive from U.S. News & World Report, Money
Magazine, Kiplinger’s and other sources.
We see first-hand evidence of the quality of our colleges in the success
of their graduates. Thomas Jefferson,
who designed the University of Virginia, would be proud. As for our record of success in economic
development, we see a solid indicator in the budget surplus that will enable
the Governor and General Assembly to undertake some exciting initiatives this
session.
As the Commonwealth has traveled on
this road to economic prosperity, we have witnessed many changes. The changes in the transportation sector in
the past century – evolving, for example, from dirt roads to “smart roads” – have
been dramatic. Equally dramatic are the
increases in the numbers of high-school graduates who go on to some form of
postsecondary education. At the turn of the century, about the time that
Americans were discovering in the horseless carriage a new medium for our
national restlessness and passion for travel, only about three percent of the population attended college
nationally. Today, just under fifty
percent of Americans aged
twenty-five or older have acquired some postsecondary education. The percentage
is likely to continue to increase. For
example, we estimate that about two-thirds of today’s high-school graduates go
on to college, although a lower percentage than that go on to complete a full
four-year college degree.
In today’s economy, a college degree is rapidly
becoming, not the key to a golden
future, as it was in the past, but rather the key to a future. A college
diploma will soon become a minimum
requirement for productive employment — the modern day equivalent of a union
card. Those who are unable to obtain
this union card are likely to be left behind.
Given this reality, the Commonwealth has a strong
obligation to make sure that college is affordable for all of our citizens. Governor Gilmore proposes to achieve that
goal, in part, by lowering the tuition charged at Virginia’s public colleges
and universities. His proposal would
offset the tuition revenue with General Fund support. Other groups – including the Blue Ribbon Commission on Higher
Education and the Joint Legislative Subcommittee on Higher Education Funding
Policies, as well as the Council – are studying how best to put in place a
long-term framework of policies that will keep college affordable. One important mechanism that will continue
to play a role in making college affordable is financial aid, both the aid for
students attending Virginia’s public colleges and universities and the aid
awarded to Virginia students attending our private colleges, through the
Tuition Assistance Grant program. The
Council has recommended an increase of nearly $28 million in financial aid,
which would allow institutions to provide about 50 percent of “unmet need” for
their students.
As work proceeds to craft a new set of funding
policies for higher education in Virginia, I encourage our business leaders and
other concerned citizens to consider these aspects of the proposed approaches:
·
First, what is the
underlying public policy framework for the proposal? What societal goals are we trying to accomplish?
Since 1974, higher education policies in Virginia have
focussed on three broad aims: to ensure the full and equal opportunity for
access to higher education to every Virginia citizen; to ensure the quality of
that educational opportunity; and to keep the cost affordable. Those aims are still the guiding principles
for the Council, affirmed most recently in our current strategic plan.
We need to review all policy proposals, including
those for funding approaches, by asking whether these broad aims will be
achieved.
·
Second, there are several
basic policy areas that ought to be addressed by our funding approach:
·
Does the approach
provide an adequate base of funds for each institution?
·
Does the approach
address enrollment levels in a manner that takes into account economies of
scale? Does it address marginal costs
in a sophisticated way? Most
importantly, does the approach give institutions broad flexibility to allocate
faculty and staff to meet essential program demand?
·
We need to come to terms
with a reasonable way to proportion the cost of college education between tuition
and taxpayer support.
·
We ought also to develop
a policy framework for how financial aid fits into the equation.
As the Council proceeds in reviewing and developing
proposals in this arena, we will welcome the advice of business and community
leaders, in addition to seeking the involvement of the college presidents and
financial officers. Throughout, we will
be guided by the principles of quality, access, and affordability.
At the same time that we take steps to
keep the cost of college within the reach of all of Virginia’s citizens, we
should not lose sight of the fact that a number of Virginia’s colleges and
universities are already rated as “best buys” by some of the rating
services. For example, Virginia is the
only state in the nation with five of the “Top 25” public colleges and
universities ranked by Kiplinger’s
Personal Finance Magazine as offering “best values in public higher education.” Those five institutions are the University
of Virginia, the College of William and Mary, Virginia Tech, Mary Washington
College, and James Madison University.
Virginians can justifiably take pride in the fact that UVA and William
and Mary, respectively, ranked second and third in the nation in Kiplinger’s rankings. The next closest states after Virginia in
these rankings are Florida with three, and California, Georgia, Michigan, New
Jersey, and New York, which each have two listed. Virginia institutions also fared well in another rating service’s
accounting of value for cost. Money Magazine rated five Virginia
institutions among its best buys: the College of William and Mary, James
Madison University, Mary Washington College, UVA, and Washington and Lee. Only New York State had a greater number of
institutions listed among Money’s top
fifty. These ratings look at the
combination of quality and cost. It is
not enough to keep college affordable; we must also guarantee the quality of
the education offered.
Before taking your questions, I want
to mention one other parallel that comes to my mind when thinking about transportation,
education, and economic development in combination. While our transportation and our education infrastructures are
vital to the economic development of the Commonwealth, I hope we will remember
that economic development is not the sole raison
d’etre for either our system of “trains, planes, and automobiles” or our
system of higher education. Virginia’s
citizens use our highways, railways, airports, and rivers to take them where
they want to go – whether their destination at any given moment is work, a
sports event, the theatre, church, visiting family or friends, or enjoying our
mountains, beaches, and other natural treasures.
I want to remind you that, when we
speak of leisure, we speak of the ways in which we seek to draw the greatest
meaning from our humanity. Work has an
end, a goal. Leisure is for
itself. We work to earn leisure. Thus economic success and ready
transportation are essential to flowering of our humanity: “life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness.” But do not
forget, that very word, “leisure,” only translates a good old-fashioned Greek
word, schola. Yes, originally, the highest and best use of
leisure was learning! We draw
transportation, the economy, and education together, because we still support
the same end long ago ancestors dreamed, the highest and best use of our
humanity.
Virginia’s citizens use their college education to
take them where they want to go. One
destination that most college students seek through their education is to reach
their career goals. As I mentioned
earlier, a college education has becoming the entrée into more and more careers
today.
But a college education can open the
door to other, less tangible, but no less important vistas. Surely economic prosperity is but a means,
not an end in itself, for us as individuals and as a society. Listen, for a moment, to these words from
Billy Wireman, president of Queens College:
Two concepts are keys to
the future of the human race: productive careers and noble lives. We must
design academic programs and institutions, which unite the two powerful ideas
and use them to transform our students’ lives. Either concept, alone, is an
orphan. Together, they two can become a forceful theme for liberal education in
the 21st century.
As
the Commonwealth of Virginia advances toward its dream of making a top quality
college education affordable and accessible for every one of our citizens, I
invite us to imagine what the future of the human race might hold if built upon
the foundation of productive careers and noble lives for all. My own dream envisions a very bright future
for Virginia – one in which a still larger
percentage of our citizens travel a highway of higher education toward
their own dreams. Will you join me in that dream and help to make it a reality?