Gov. Bob McDonnell gave his State of the Commonwealth address last week. Along with giving a summary of the governor’s job during his first year in office, the speech brought renewed attention to many of the governor’s proposals.
In my opinion, McDonnell had a very good first year. While the nation’s economy has continued to struggle, individual states have met their own struggles with things like unemployment and state budgets. As McDonnell was talking about these issues he said, “Virginia has done better than most.”
Since February of last year, Virginia has added a net total of 67,900 jobs, which is third-best in the country. In 2009, Virginia ranked only 35th in this category. Also since February, the state’s unemployment rate has fallen from 7.2 percent to 6.8 percent, which is the ninth-lowest in the country.
Finally, current spending has been rolled back to 2006 levels, and a $1.8 billion budget shortfall for the fiscal year 2010 budget was turned into a $403 million surplus without raising taxes on Virginians.
As we Republicans said during the 2009 campaign: Go Bob, go. While these numbers and statistics are great to hear, we college students still want to hear more on education. We all remember the tuition increases from last year. McDonnell caught a lot of scrutiny, both from Republicans and Democrats, over funding cuts for education.
People ask me about the cuts and I can’t easily defend them. McDonnell ran on balancing the budget. I personally never saw the entire budget. I don’t know what every cent was cut from. I just had faith in my governor that the right decisions were made, however tough they may have been to make. Also, to be fair, education cuts and tuition increases in Virginia are not a new trend, as tuition in Virginia has nearly doubled over the past decade.
I do wish budget cuts for education never had to be made in the first place. Luckily, McDonnell is moving toward improving education funding. He mentioned his top four priorities for the current legislative session, and one of them was establishing “major reforms and more accountability in higher education to make college more affordable and accessible for our students.”
McDonnell has unveiled a plan that would allow Virginia’s public colleges and universities to apply for $50 million for items such as increasing enrollment and boosting financial aid. Out of that money, schools can apply for $13 million to increase undergraduate financial aid. Other money will help increase things like enrollment and retention of students.
The governor has also proposed other items in the budget that could increase funding to help universities commercialize their research, and add money to the state’s Tuition Assistance Grant Program.
The year 2011 will not magically address every higher education need. However, McDonnell is making an effort. This is definitely a start.
He is still working toward the campaign promises he made for education, but these things do take time. The fact is, we are still in tough economic times and states just don’t have the money they used to. Still, Virginians can be thankful we have a governor who is working to keep a balanced budget. After all, you can’t spend money you don’t have.
Source: Collegiate Times
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