Collegiate Times

A portion of a Virginia House Budget Bill establishes an out-of-state enrollment policy that would require a minimum of 70 percent of enrollment in a public university be reserved for Virginia residents.

The bill, introduced by Delegate Clay Athey (R-Front Royal), calls for a 30 percent limit on out-of-state undergraduate students and 20 percent limit on out-of-state transfer students.

"My constituents expect their children to be able to attend a Virginia public university," Athey said in a press release on Feb. 18.

Mike Belefski, Athey's delegate representative, believes that a "lot of universities have the quota pretty well set; they just don't want to be told what to do."

He said that the two universities that have the most reason to oppose the legislation are University of Virginia and Virginia Tech.

Compared to other Virginia schools, "you could argue that schools like UVa and Tech are probably a little more national in their appeal," said UVa Dean of Admissions, Greg Roberts. "So I think part of that is because of them being national research institutions, we have our priorities" outside of the state.

Roberts went on to say that such a quota goes through the legislation each year but doesn't get passed because schools economically wouldn't manage to make up for the loss of revenue that out-of-state students give to the universities. He estimated that for every half-percent decrease of out-of-state student revenue, a university such as UVa could lose more than $1 million.

"The more Virginians you have, the fewer out-of-states and those are the ones who pay substantially more," Roberts said.

However, according to Amy Widner of undergraduate admissions, such a bill wouldn't affect Tech too much.

"The 30 percent is about what we've been at for in-state/out-of-state mix," Widner said.

For Tech, the rate of out-of-state students admitted into the university has stayed between 25 and 29 percent every year for the past decade. For the fall 2008 semester, Tech's out-of-state enrollment was at 26 percent -- 6,223 students of a total of 23,567 undergraduates.

Widner said that the costs for a Tech education for one in-state student are paid for through three sources: in-state tuition, funding from the state, and the tuition of out-of-state students.

The admissions office does not foresee any increase in out-of-state admission rates for Tech.

"We feel like we are getting about the level of out-of-state response that we can expect unless we do begin to be able to provide cheaper deals for them," Widner said. Out-of-state tuition at Tech is $18,789 plus $2,036 in fees.

If the bill passes, Widner said that Tech is not worried about reaching across the country for students.

"We work very hard to increase our visibility as an option for out-of-state students," Widner said.  "We're not nearly as well known out of the state and the immediate neighbor states of Virginia as we would like to be so we're always interested in increasing the awareness of the high level of academic programs that we have."

Schools in Virginia are all along the spectrum of in-state and out-of-state admittance. Christopher Newport University had a 95 percent in-state rate for the fall 2008 semester.

Similarly, Radford University's fall 2008 semester undergraduate student body was composed of 93 percent in-state students.

At the other extreme, Virginia Military Institute is currently composed of 40 percent out-of-state students, but the bill excludes VMI from the requirements because of its special pool of applicants.

"VMI is recognized by the legislature that we have an admission that does extend the borders of Virginia," said Stewart MacInnis VMI spokesman.

"It's a different kind of application and to get to an appropriate number with the academic credentials, we do need to go out of state."

The Budget Bill passed through the House and awaits passage through the Senate.