Virginia Governor: State to Reinvest in Higher Education

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell said Thursday he believed higher education is tied directly to job creation - and that the state will soon be reinvesting more money to continue that.

Addressing a crowd of about 100 at George Mason University's Mason Hall, McDonnell said his administration has invested $400 million "in new money," over and above the budget, into higher education in the past three years.  

And he says more is coming.

McDonnell said he will announce Monday a "huge surplus" in savings for the Commonwealth of Virginia, which will be "even larger than" the $263 million he recently announced in revenue surplus. 

"That money will be reinvested in things like transportation, water quality, and 'rainy day' funds," he said, but will also be reinvested in higher education to help take the pressure off of public colleges and universities like GMU to "keep tuitions down."

GMU President Angel Cabrera told the crowd in just 11 days, the university will welcome the largest freshman class in the institution's history.

He also said, according to recently-released data,  GMU alumni earn on average the highest wages post-graduation than any other public university in the state.

McDonnell said he couldn't take all the credit for positive reports such as those - that college presidents throughout Virginia are "heeding the call" and doing their part to make college more accessible for the state's young people, and to raise tuitions by as little as possible. But the surplus money expected next week will help.

READ: Students at Public Va. Colleges to See Tuition, Fee Increases

McDonnell said just 10 years ago, only about 38 to 42 percent of Virginians were enrolling in Virginia schools, and tuition had doubled over the previous 10 years.

"Access to public schools in Virginia was not as robust as it should have been," he said.

Today, he said, the outlook is much more positive, particularly with the state assembly's passing of the Top Jobs Act (Virginia Higher Education Opportunity Act) in 2011. 

He asked schools to make sure they are investing money in the right places — namely, increasing the number of slots open to new students at their schools, and focusing on areas that are really driving growth in Virginia, such as STEM and technology.

McDonnell said those will continue to be among his priorities as he enters the final four months of his term as governor, and that he knows "people have been lobbying the two major candidates" for his replacement relentlessly to make sure the next governor continues to do so.

"I still have about 144 days left - there's still a lot of things I want to do," he said. "That whole one-term-governor thing is really messing me up," he said with a laugh.



See a short video of some of the highlights of McDonnell's talk above.

What do you think of what Gov. McDonnell had to say about the future of higher education in Virginia? Tell us in the comments below.

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