The Virginia House of Delegates Education Committee killed a bill last week aiming to cut the number of out-of-state students to 25 percent of a school's total enrollment.
One of the bill's co-sponsors, Delegate Jay O'Brien, R-Fairfax, said the proposal was developed because several constituents had complained that qualified in-state students were being denied admission because their places had been taken by out-of-state students. "Several of Virginia's finest students are not getting accepted into its (public) universities," O'Brien said.
But many members of the university community oppose the measure because they fear it will hurt the academic quality of their schools.
Bill Walker, associate vice chancellor for public affairs at the College of William and Mary, said, historically, out-of-state students have been important in creating a diverse environment at the school. "I went to the University of Virginia," he said. "Jefferson wrote of the importance of attracting out-of-state students."
He added that William and Mary has a longstanding policy of maintaining an in-state versus out-of-state ratio of 65 to 35 percent.
Currently, 36 percent of William and Mary students are from out-of-state. "We feel for a number of reasons that's preferable," Walker said. "We feel that geographical diversity as well as other kinds of diversity are important."
O'Brien said the reason many in the university community, including the Board of Visitors, which oversees Virginia's public colleges and universities, are not in favor of changing the policy is because they are not elected and do not hear complaints from constituents.
"The schools in Virginia don't want to be told anything by anybody," he said. "I, however, represent 79,000 people in Fairfax County and hear a different thing."
O'Brien sponsored a similar bill last year that would have set the out-of-state percentage at 33 percent. That bill also failed to make it out of committee.
