ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, November 14, 1996 TAG: 9611140006
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
UNDER Virginia's exhausting, annoying system of incessant electioneering, not 72 hours had transpired after last week's presidential and congressional elections before the pandering began for the 1997 gubernatorial race.
Last Thursday, Attorney General James Gilmore, the likely '97 Republican nominee, unveiled his proposed "New Century Scholars Program": $2,000-a-year college-tuition scholarships to the top 20 percent of Virginia students, to begin in 1999. First-year cost would be $24 million, rising to an estimated $100 million annually when in full operation.
Whereupon the camp of Lt. Gov. Donald Beyer, the likely Democratic nominee, reminded Virginians that he, too, has been working on an "Invest Program" that would reward even more students with college-tuition scholarships and start at about $40 million in the first year.
That both prospective candidates are focusing on higher education - which in Virginia still hasn't fully recovered from the funding hits it took in the late '80s and early '90s - is good. For now, though, the proposals' political significance is more apparent than their educational and fiscal import.
Gilmore clearly is trying to pre-empt a Beyer campaign theme, while giving notice he won't allow himself to be defined as anti-education. That explains his haste. But hard questions should be asked and answered before Virginians sign on to either prospective candidate's dotted line.
For example:
* The tuition scholarships would not be means-tested. Why should the state award a tax-supported subsidy to students whose families can afford the tuition and who probably would be attending college anyway?
* In the emerging knowledge-based economy, is the need to assure a good education limited to the top 20 or 25 percent of high-school students? Or is an equally important, if more difficult, challenge to make higher education accessible to many more students?
* Would money for tuition-assistance grants be better spent as direct appropriations to the colleges and universities themselves? That would be in addition to, rather than replacement of, tuition money collected.
We're not saying the answers to these questions would necessarily rule out support for either proposal. Rising tuitions are putting a squeeze on middle-class families. Particularly given a shortage of Virginia graduates with high-tech skills, the state has an interest in seeing its top students stay in the commonwealth. And providing funds via student assistance can encourage institutions to keep a competitive focus on the consumer.
As panders go, these tuition-scholarship proposals are far better than average. They reflect a recognition by both candidates of how education differs from many kinds of public services. That is: With prisons or welfare programs, the goal should be to reduce the conditions - crime, poverty - that make the programs necessary. With education, the goal should be to foster the kind of society and economy that demands more of the program for more people.
Nevertheless, a pander is still a pander. Like President Clinton's campaign-trail offer of tuition tax credits, Beyer's and Gilmore's panders have a surface appeal, but it isn't immediately clear that they're the best way of working toward a worthy aim. Why anyone would need immediate clarity on these points a year before the gubernatorial election is another matter.
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS STATEby CNB