In both basic and higher education, Virginia is failing to meet core requirements — even those that are legally mandated. Two examples:

The state still is not funding its share of the Standards of Quality for public schools.

And, after failing to keep up support to public colleges and universities, requiring those institutions to raise tuition prices, it is now failing to keep pace in its support of student financial aid.

For education in kindergarten through grade 12, Virginia is at least making limited progress.

The state is supposed to pay 55 percent of the costs of the Standards of Quality, which set minimum requirements for public school divisions. Local governments pay the rest. Local school officials say Virginia has long failed to fully meet its mandate. Currently, the state is behind in its support by about half a [billion] dollars — but the picture could be worse.

As far back as 2001, a budget shortfall of about $1 [billion] in Virginia’s SOQ share had been predicted for the fiscal year ending June 30. Legislators have struggled to make up the difference, and they have managed to get about halfway there — despite a recession that shrank state revenues. It’s not where they ought to be, but their effort has prevented the problem from getting even worse.

Some educators complain that the General Assembly trimmed the shortfall in the basic standards by cutting special programs and shifting that money to the SOQs. That results in no net gain for education, they say.

Maybe so. But the state’s obligation is to fund the SOQs, and the premise behind that arrangement is that extra programs will be supported only if extra funds are available. When they are not, it only makes sense to cut funding to nonessential programs. The state must live up to its obligation to ensure adequate, basic education for all Virginia students. When that is done, it may spend money for added programs.

Meanwhile, needy college students are suffering the consequences of state policies regarding tuition.

In 1994, the legislature decided that tuitions at state schools had been rising too fast, and ordered a cap at 3 percent. Then it froze tuitions during much of the ’90s. Then in 2000 it ordered schools to roll back tuition prices by 20 percent. Now that it finds itself apparently unable to continue an adequate level of tax support to these tax-supported schools, it has freed them to unleash tuition prices.

Higher tuitions are especially hard on low-income students. So the state has a goal of supplying financial aid equivalent to 50 percent of tuition prices. Is it doing so? No. The level of actual state aid had already dropped to 42 percent. Next year it will decline even further, to just 36 percent.

So not only has Virginia made financial aid more necessary, it has failed to fund enough aid to meet the need it created. The only bright spot in this scenario is that Virginia colleges and universities are still relatively affordable institutions even after the average 9 percent boost that occurred in 2002.

But under both law and policy, Virginia has financial obligations to its students that it is not meeting. Impulsive fiscal decisions and failure to hold a steady, wise course have hurt the state’s ability to meet its responsibilities. A new philosophy is necessary — one that looks to the long term for the health of Virginia’s education, not just to the next election. (Daily Progress Editorial, June 24, 2003)