How come Johnny who had a straight A average in high school can’t get in to William and Mary or U.VA, Virginia’s two Ivy League-like premier universities? Northern Virginia students are hit especially hard with this reality, since regardless of what is said, there is a quota. If there weren’t, the premium northern Virginia schools would take up all the slots and the rest of the state would be out in the cold.
Part of the problem has always been that out-of-state students take up slots that Virginia students would like to have. Why are these spots give to out-of-staters? MONEY. The out-of-state students pay higher tuition. The ratio of out-of-state students to Virginia students crawls upward during hard times, like the ones we are in now. According to the Richmond Times Dispatch:
Richmond, Va. —
The University of Virginia expects 3,246 first-year students to move in Saturday, among them 1,035 who are from out of state.
Of 1,404 freshmen who will arrive Aug. 25 at the College of William and Mary, 522 are non-Virginians.
Like their in-state peers, they’ll feel the impact of rising tuition costs — and then some.
The two schools more than comply with a state law that requires public colleges and universities to charge out-of-state students the full cost of their education.
U.Va. charges nonresidents 173 percent of the average per-student cost, while W&M charges 154 percent, according to a report last month by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.
All the state’s public schools exceed the per-student cost by a statewide average of 151 percent, the report found.
But it’s the in-state, out-of-state numbers at Virginia’s two “public ivies” that draw the most attention.
