If the General Assembly weaves a House of Delegates proposal into its final budget today, out-of-state students will be forced to help Virginia pay back the General Obligation Bond for college construction approved last November.
"Fulltime out-of-state students would pay about 50 dollars a year for the fee," said Tony Maggio, legislative fiscal analyst for higher education in the House.
The "capital fee" proposal is similar to one floated in the Senate last year, which would have charged both in-state and out-of-state students a fee, Maggio said.
"The House proposal this year was that basically in-state students theoretically already pay for the cost of capital, because they're paying taxes," he said.
Out-of-state students have yet to finance a major component of their education, said Vincent F. Callahan Jr., R-McLean, chair of the house appropriations committee.
"What we've been charging out-of-state students prior to this is for maintenance and operation, but the capital -- they've never been charged for that," Callahan said. "They've been charged for the professor who teaches them, but not for the building he teaches in."
Maggio concurred with Callahan's assessment.
"The Commonwealth is about to embark on about a billion dollars of projects, and the thought was that out-of-state students will benefit from these buildings and renovations," Maggio said.
Out-of-state students would aid in paying debt service on the $900.5 million dollar bonding package approved in referendum by voters last November.
Debt service is the series of payments of interest and principal -- the original amount of money borrowed -- required on a debt over a given period of time.
Callahan explained that, because the state will take 20 years to pay back these bonds, out-of-state students should expect the new fee to become a permanent part of their University bills.
Out-of-state students, who comprise 20 percent of Virginia's total public college population, would foot the bill for about $2 million out of $20 million dollars of required debt service annually, Maggio said.
"I don't think this is necessarily onerous from that perspective," he added.
Virginia's last general obligation bond, passed for college construction in 1992, had language in it to make sure out-of-state students would pay their fair share, Maggio said, but he is not sure how that actually was accomplished.
Leonard W. Sandridge, University executive vice president and chief operating officer, said he is dissatisfied with the fee's potential singling out of non-Virginians.
"We don't necessarily think having fees attached to a particular class of students is the right way to go in the long run," Sandridge said.
Out-of-state students currently pay about 140 percent of the cost of their education, said Colette Sheehy, vice president for management and budget, at a Thursday faculty senate meeting.
An additional fee on top of those charges is of little consequence, Callahan said.
"They're paying 140 percent and they're getting a bargain," he said.
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