Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, October 7, 1993                   TAG: 9312030381
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

GOOD NUMBERS

The folks at VMI wouldn't mind getting more. That's because the institute stacks up nicely, thank you, on several key indicators of fiscal management and instructional quality.

It is, however, a double-edged saber. VMI also costs Virginia taxpayers more per student than most other schools - even though VMI is an all-undergraduate institution without a research mission.

Like the rest of the system, the VMI budget has been rocked by state-budget cutbacks. Annual state support is $2.2 million less to day than four years ago. Tuition increases have offset only about $200,000 of the funding cuts.

That's less than at most Virginia colleges, because VMI has managed to keep tuition increases lower than have most Virginia colleges. Over the past two years, VMI tuition has dropped from second- to sixth-highest among Virginia's 14 state-supported universities and senior colleges.

For 1993-94, the tuition increase over the previous year was held to 3.4 percent, about the same as general inflation. Despite the decline in state funding, state-mandated raises in pay for faculty (3.6 percent) and other employees (6.8 percent), and rising (9.8 percent) health-insurance costs, VMI officials say the budget was balanced without reducing academic programs. Instead, about $450,000 in non-academic spending was eliminated (including some non-faculty positions), and the contingency fund was reduced.

Meanwhile, faculty members spend more time in the classroom than at most if not all other senior colleges in the state system. In the five academic disciplines used in a survey in the newspaper series (but with psychology substituted for sociology, which isn't taught at VMI), VMI officials report an average faculty load of nearly four courses per semester.

Currently at VMI, 33 percent of freshman English courses are taught by full professors, 28 percent by associate professors and 39 percent by assistant percent. At most institutions surveyed in the newpaper series, fewer than 10 percent of freshman English courses were taught by someone at the rank of assistant professor or higher.

Such stats speak well of VMI, but there's another stat that also should be mentioned: the state's relative generosity to VMI.

According to an August estimate by the State Council of Higher Education, VMI this year will get about $5,400 per full-time student in taxpayer money. That figure is exceeded only at Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Virginia, where it's driven up by the costs of medical and other health- related graduate programs. (Virginia Tech's also would be higher than VMI's if you included its research and extension components.)

In other words, the numbers suggest that (1) VMI has done a good job adjusting to the budget cutbacks - but also that (2) VMI started from a relatively comfortable fiscal position.

From the first point, one might conclude that, in dealing with the new era into which higher education is entering, an institution is helped by having a strong, clear sense of its nature and mission. That, whatever else you say about the place, VMI has.

From the second point, one might conclude that, while money is no guarantor of educational excellence, there is a connection - and that if Virginia wants more of its colleges and universities, it must not starve them.