Virginia Del. Tim Hugo, R-Fairfax, introduced legislation that would require most of Virginia’s public universities to reserve three-quarters of their openings for Virginia students. Hugo said thousands of students across Virginia who are getting excellent grades and SAT scores are being pushed out of Virginia’s schools by out-of-state students. “Virginia is a magnet for kids from New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, and what they do is push our kids across the border,” Hugo said. “And I think that’s wrong.”
Counting undergraduate and graduate, plus students pursuing medical or law degrees, the University of Virginia, James Madison University, William & Mary and Virginia Tech all had in-state student populations below 75 percent, according to fall 2010 head counts. The percentage of in-state students now ranges from 61 percent at Virginia to 72 percent at James Madison.
Hugo introduced similar legislation in the General Assembly before, but the measures stalled in committee.
Schools oppose the proposal in part because out-of-state students pay substantially more than in-state students and reducing their number would be a financial blow to the colleges at a time when the state itself has been reducing funding to the schools. Out-of-state students pay $43,593 at the University of Virginia, for example, more than twice the $20,647 in-state students pay, according to a recent report from the business forecasting company Kiplinger.
Under Hugo’s bill, state colleges would have to increase how much out-of-state students pay to make up for the reduction in their numbers. The Department of Planning and Budget last year calculated that that would cost out-of-state students a total of $119 million. Tuition increases would range from 11 percent at James Madison to 39 percent at Virginia.
“We have been in a fight with these schools — and it has not been pleasant,” said Del. Dave Albo, R-Fairfax, the bill’s co-patron.
Hugo cited the Kiplinger report that he says could boost the bill’s chances this year. The report rates the four Virginia colleges as some of the best deals in the country for out-of-state students — though the tuition is still much greater than for in-state students in all of the cases.
Carol Wood, a spokeswoman for the University of Virginia, said the school believes it’s already struck a reasonable balance with 30 percent of its students coming from out of state.
