Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Editorial: Investing in higher ed
Virginia underfunds its colleges and universities at the cost of its economy.
From the RoundTable blog
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Transportation might get most of the attention in Richmond, but Virginia underfunds other core government services, too. Higher education has been the ugly stepchild of the state budget for years.
The well-respected Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia recently released an in-depth analysis of higher education's economic impact on the state. It offers fresh evidence that when lawmakers shortchange higher education, they harm the commonwealth.
The most telling finding of the report is the straight-up return on investment. Based on 2007 economic data, Weldon Cooper found that every dollar the state spent on higher education generated an additional $1.39 in state revenue and $13.31 worth of Virginia gross domestic product.
It adds up. Overall, public higher education accounted for $2.5 billion in annual tax revenue and $24 billion of state GDP. It also provided 144,550 jobs, including 21,074 in this part of the state.
A quarter of the money comes from out-of-state sources in the form of research grants, out-of-state tuition, private gifts, and student and visitor expenditures.
The Virginia Business Higher Education Council, which sponsored the research, thinks the commonwealth needs to build on those benefits. It is advocating for 70,000 new degrees over the next 10 years, which would require greater commitment from Richmond.
The payoff could be huge. Billions of dollars more would flow into the commonwealth, state coffers and workers' pockets. An educated workforce would attract and fill the high-paying, knowledge-based jobs that people with degrees enjoy.
Finding the seed money is the trick. With the state budget in disarray and one candidate for governor talking about shifting money from the general fund to transportation, funds for higher education likely will remain scarce. As long as they do, Virginia will throttle one of its greatest economic engines.
