In Colleges, a Generosity Gap

Virginia has one of the finest systems of higher education in America. Our cadre of leading public universities is the envy of many states. We can boast a potent collection of private colleges and universities. Our community college system provides open and enabling access to thousands of Virginians.

We've achieved much. But our progress is not all-encompassing.

A study last year by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education -- "Measuring Up: The National Report Card on Higher Education" -- gave Virginia heartening marks on many fronts: preparation, participation, graduation rates and effective student learning. On one milepost, though, "affordability," we lodged an F.

The authors concluded that our investment in need-based financial aid "is very low." Young adults from high-income families are four times as likely as their low-income counterparts to attend college -- the "widest gap in the nation." That's hardly the verdict Virginians expect to hear.

That disappointing trend was reflected pointedly in a report last spring by Postsecondary Education Opportunity called "Gated Communities of Higher Education," which focused on the 50 most "economically exclusive" universities in the nation. It concluded that four of the five public universities enrolling the fewest Pell Grant-eligible (low-income) students are Virginia institutions (University of Virginia, William & Mary, James Madison University and University of Mary Washington). Virginia Tech, Christopher Newport University and the Virginia Military Institute also landed in the top 20. Two private Virginia universities, Washington & Lee and Richmond, were listed among the three institutions having the fewest low-income students overall.

It's not that we lack for poor students. Almost 30 percent of Virginia resident collegians are eligible for Pell grants -- that's up from 25 percent a decade ago. Nor does rigorous academic selectivity account for the whole picture. Terrific public universities such as Michigan, California-Berkeley, Wisconsin, UNC-Chapel Hill, Minnesota and Texas, for example, do far better than our best public universities.

The stark underrepresentation of low-income students in our most accomplished public universities has many and complex causes. Insufficient state and institutional financial assistance, elevated tuition levels, K-12 preparatory challenges in some communities, diminished academic expectations in others, an abundance of well-qualified and well-resourced students from Northern Virginia -- the list is long.

I also hope the disturbing "Gated Communities" study is already modestly out of date. It captures enrollments from 1994 to 2005, the latest data available. William & Mary's Gateway Initiative and U-Va.'s Access Virginia program -- which meet the full need of resident students from families earning less than $40,000 a year without loans -- should be achieving comparative progress. Other bolstered aid packages are being launched across the commonwealth.

But the ground we occupy is powerfully at odds with our identity and aspirations. And the hole from which we dig is formidable. The hefty cuts recently demanded from Virginia public universities will increase tuition pressures markedly -- without expanding financial aid capacities. The linkage between state support and affordability is inescapable. Opportunity at U.S. universities, even public ones, tracks family wealth with surprising correlation -- surprising, at least, for the most advanced democracy on Earth.

Thomas Jefferson thought it crucial that "worth and genius be sought from every condition" of society. More powerful, more ambitious and more effective commitments to access and opportunity are essential to narrow the gap between our words and deeds.

-- Gene R. Nichol

Williamsburg

The writer is president of the College of William & Mary.