ONCE YOU arrive here at the University as a first-year student you're thrust into a world involving many unknown people. You ask each other a variety of introductory questions, and gradually learn to amend the "Where are you from?" question to "What part of Northern Virginia are you from?" While the abundance of NoVa students is usually exaggerated, there is actually a current movement which is trying to make it more of a reality.
Today the Virginia General Assembly will vote on the proposal of James O'Brien (R-Fairfax) to place a cap on the percentage of out-of-state students at all of the Commonwealth's colleges and universities. This attempt to place hard and fast limits on out-of-state enrollment is completely misguided: Forcefully keeping out well qualified out-of-state students will simultaneously decrease the academic quality of the student body, the geographic diversity of the school, and the financial resources of the University.
If passed, this proposal would place a hard cap on out-of-state students at 33 percent of those enrolled at Virginia colleges and universities. O'Brien's Northern Virginia constituents are worried about their children having to deal with undue out-of-state competition when they have been dutifully paying taxes and supporting Virginia for however many years. Unfortunately, this particular concern does not make much sense.
The admissions standards for in-state students are already lower than those from out-of-state. Virginian students already have an advantage because the University tries to maintain a 65-35 balance of in-state to out-of-state students. Additionally, the out-of-state admissions pool is actually larger than the in-state one, and thus the competition from out-of-state is much fiercer: In the most recent year there were 5,608 Virginian applicants as compared to 8,864 out-of state applicants. Of the Virginian applicants, 2,969, or 54.2 percent, were offered admission while only 2,513, or 45.8 percent, of the non-Virginian applicants were.
If the University is forced to turn away more out-of-state students due to state legislation, it will surely harm the University. From a purely practical, fiscal perspective, out-of-state students bear an enormous cost burden. The tuition is approximately four times higher for out-of-state students than for their Virginian counterparts. This means that every out-of-state student turned away in favor of more in-state students translates into lost revenue. This will anger Virginian parents even more, because they will never stand for the idea of any in-state tuition increase at all. They want the out-of-state students to attend the University in order to pay for their children's education and yet they do not want those same students to take their children's spot.
The Virginians' fear of their children losing spots to out-of-state students is a legitimate one in some senses: Out-of-state students generally are stronger academically than in-state students. This only makes sense; since the competition is fiercer, the out-of-state students who rise to the top of that pool are stronger academically than the Virginian students, who have lower standards to reach. In terms of SAT scores and class rank, the average out-of-state student is stronger than the average in-state student. While these differences are not very large, keeping away these out-of-state students will harm the academic and intellectual environment here at the University. Not only are they good students, they help give the University a geographic diversity which aligns with Mr. Jefferson's idea of this being a national University. If the Commonwealth wants the University to really be a top institution, it should allow the University to continue to admit more of the highly qualified out-of-state students instead of turning them away because of an arbitrary cap.
It certainly is easy to understand why the Virginians feel that they deserve all the advantages they receive. After all, this is a state school. An important point to keep in mind, however, is that this is not the only state school. The University is the number one public institution not only in the state of Virginia, but in the country. If less Virginians are accepted to the University because their spots were taken by more qualified out-of-state applicants, it's not as if they can not go to college. They will always have the option of attending a different state college or university, which is not a tragedy.
Placing a definitive maximum on the percentage of out-of-state students at the University is a harmful measure which will only end up hurting the University in the long run. The passage of this bill will not only hurt the University financially and academically, but will hurt the idea of the kind of place Jefferson envisioned the University to be. A truly national University does not need hard caps on out-of-state enrollment -- hopefully that is something the General Assembly will understand.
(Luke Godwin is a Cavalier Daily opinion columnist.)
Read More
EDITORIAL: Scapegoating students will not stop hazing
By Editorial Board | 2 days agoInstead of retroactively responding to extreme hazing allegations, we, and especially the University, must begin asking more probing questions about the role of fraternal organizations on Grounds.
EDITORIAL: Celebrating and reflecting on The Cavalier Daily’s independence
By Editorial Board | April 18, 2024Our independence grants us the ability to ask the hard questions and to say what University representatives cannot.
ARRAS: U.Va. must revise the Sexual Assault Prevention Training module
By Aoife Arras | April 17, 2024In addition to its failures in interactivity, the module lacks details specific to the University and discusses key concepts in universal terms.
