In the current legislative session, the Virginia General Assembly will examine a proposal to study the feasibility of establishing a four-year public university in Virginia Beach.
Virginia Beach is "the biggest city in the Commonwealth," said Delegate Robert Tata, R-Virginia Beach, the patron of this bill. "We have 400,000 people in the city. We are the only city that big in the country that doesn't have a state-supported university."
Tata said while Virginia Beach houses two private schools -- Virginia Wesleyan College and Regent University -- they are "just so expensive for the average kid."
The people of Virginia Beach have "become more of a moderate income group," Tata said. "Before it used to be a tourist city and everyone had some means. The income has dropped considerably. We need something for kids who want to stay at home and go to school. It's for those kids who don't want to go away and whose parents who don't want them to go away."
Kathleen Kincheloe, a spokesperson at the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia explained the process by which this bill could become a law.
"Because it is a House resolution it will be looked at first by the House and maybe by a subcommittee [and] folks could offer amendments," Kincheloe said. "If the House approves it, it goes to the Senate and it may be amended in some way. Before it becomes law the governor will have to sign it as well."
She added that it is difficult to predict the effects of a new four-year public university in Virginia Beach because the legislation is subject to change.
"I want to stress that this legislation probably going to undergo a lot of scrutiny and amendments," Kincheloe said. "There's not any conclusions that we can draw at this point."
University spokesperson Carol Wood said the debate about a four-year university in Virginia Beach is "a discussion that is cyclical down there ... it ebbs and flows. There's no connection between the University and that discussion."
Wood added that she would not speculate about the potential effects of this plan on the University.
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