You Don't Need A Weatherman….
The Virginia Informer | Editorial Board
Last Updated:2/3/10 Section: Staff Editorials
The College's operating budget has been slashed four times in the last 13 months due to cuts in state funding. House bill 732, currently on the docket, would require that 75% of the student body be from the state of Virginia, causing a loss of $9 million dollars in revenue to the College. The figures are dismaying; the message is clear. Virginians have not made funding higher education a priority.
To alleviate the strain, a 5% tax on student fees has been proposed, and another proposal would raise the tuition of out-of-state students to match those of a typical private university. These 'solutions' are financially inadequate, and they stink of cowardly legislators afraid to have real conversations about real sacrifice with their constituencies.
Last Tuesday, 38 students boarded a bus at 6 AM to petition legislators, not for more money, but asking that the legislature simply not take any more away. It was a road, so to speak, paved with good intentions. In reality, most of the time was spent waiting outside of offices and speaking to Legislative Aides, most of whom gave nothing more than a vague promise to 'pass it along.' The trip was too little, too late. Two hours of knocking on doors is not nearly enough to make our voices heard.
Granted it's a symbolically powerful gesture, but not much else. If anything, the trip only proved that Richmond isn't listening. Student Assembly president Sarah Rojas announced bi-weekly trips, with the goal of strengthening old relationships with the legislature and building new ones. This seems like a good start, but as it is, there's no reason to be optimistic.
Facing tough economic times, Commonwealth voters have buttoned their coats, tightened their belts, and turned their back on their students. Let us be the first to say that it is sad and shameful to be at this point at all. The College in the past year has produced a Rhodes scholar, a Miss Virginia USA, and our sports teams have garnered national attention. While those individuals are exceptional, and we're very proud of them, they are also high-water marks of the sustained, robust excellence of the College as a whole.
At breakfast, President Reveley grimly remarked, "our fur has been cut and cut and cut, and now we're into muscle and bone." Everything that can reasonably be cut has been cut already. The quality of a William & Mary education must not suffer; it is far better to explore options for privatization than languish as state funding slows to a trickle.
We are hopeful for solutions, but we are not na've, and we must preserve our muscle and our bone. Most importantly, we implore Virginians to heed the third President of the United States and graduate of our dear College in his thought that, "nothing more than education [is] advancing the prosperity, the power, and the happiness of a nation."
To alleviate the strain, a 5% tax on student fees has been proposed, and another proposal would raise the tuition of out-of-state students to match those of a typical private university. These 'solutions' are financially inadequate, and they stink of cowardly legislators afraid to have real conversations about real sacrifice with their constituencies.
Last Tuesday, 38 students boarded a bus at 6 AM to petition legislators, not for more money, but asking that the legislature simply not take any more away. It was a road, so to speak, paved with good intentions. In reality, most of the time was spent waiting outside of offices and speaking to Legislative Aides, most of whom gave nothing more than a vague promise to 'pass it along.' The trip was too little, too late. Two hours of knocking on doors is not nearly enough to make our voices heard.
Granted it's a symbolically powerful gesture, but not much else. If anything, the trip only proved that Richmond isn't listening. Student Assembly president Sarah Rojas announced bi-weekly trips, with the goal of strengthening old relationships with the legislature and building new ones. This seems like a good start, but as it is, there's no reason to be optimistic.
Facing tough economic times, Commonwealth voters have buttoned their coats, tightened their belts, and turned their back on their students. Let us be the first to say that it is sad and shameful to be at this point at all. The College in the past year has produced a Rhodes scholar, a Miss Virginia USA, and our sports teams have garnered national attention. While those individuals are exceptional, and we're very proud of them, they are also high-water marks of the sustained, robust excellence of the College as a whole.
At breakfast, President Reveley grimly remarked, "our fur has been cut and cut and cut, and now we're into muscle and bone." Everything that can reasonably be cut has been cut already. The quality of a William & Mary education must not suffer; it is far better to explore options for privatization than languish as state funding slows to a trickle.
We are hopeful for solutions, but we are not na've, and we must preserve our muscle and our bone. Most importantly, we implore Virginians to heed the third President of the United States and graduate of our dear College in his thought that, "nothing more than education [is] advancing the prosperity, the power, and the happiness of a nation."
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