Number of Va. students seeking financial aid soars

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Number of Va. students seeking financial aid soars

Posted: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 9:14 pm
BY KARIN KAPSIDELIS Richmond Times-Dispatch

RICHMOND — Enrollment at the state’s public colleges and universities dipped below 400,000 this fall for the first time since 2008, and more students require financial aid. ... Pointing to a 78 percent increase in the number of students requiring assistance since 2011, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia voted Tuesday to ask the General Assembly to appropriate an additional $30 million for undergraduate need-based financial aid next year.
....

SCHEV is recommending schools “use their tuition capacity” to increase faculty salaries and to raise revenue necessary to cover the costs of maintenance and operations. The council resolution states that institutional needs “include the realization, over time, of the long-standing 60th percentile goal for faculty salaries” through increases in tuition revenue. ... Salaries at Virginia’s four-year institutions average at the 38th percentile of their national peers despite a state goal of ranking in the 60th percentile, SCHEV said.

SCHEV Director Peter Blake said by email after the meeting that the resolution “acknowledges what we and others have heard — that additional state appropriations will be hard to come by in the upcoming session. And as difficult a decision it is to raise tuition and fees, institutions should target any increase on the following priorities, some of which have been neglected for too long: faculty salaries, operation of educational buildings, and unavoidable cost increases.”

To help alleviate the impact, he said, the council recommends as “its highest and only general fund request” for fiscal year 2016 that the assembly approve $30 million for need-based aid and $1.5 million for the Tuition Assistance Grant program. The TAG program offsets tuition for in-state students attending private Virginia colleges. The current undergraduate award, which is not based on need or merit, is $3,100.