Give Kilgore extra credit for again taking the lead in proposing programs, this time in higher ed. It seems like we\u2019re always hearing that \u201cKaine\u2019s program will be announced soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
But again Kilgore fails the acid test as asked by Sen. Russ Potts<\/a>, “How would he pay for those?”<\/p>\n Kilgore says<\/a> \u201cthe money for the expanded grants and for the engineering scholarships would come from growth in the state general fund from a burgeoning economy.\u201d<\/p>\n The two main proposals are 100 engineering scholarships to students who eventually earn an engineering degree and then work in Virginia (for how long, who knows?) and an increase in publicly funded grants to students attending private colleges.<\/p>\n Makes you wonder about his priorities — even if he did say where the money is coming from — that he proposes to spend $20 million more a year for students at private colleges but only $1 million more a year for state college students.<\/p>\n Or is he? Help me with the math. Kilgore says the engineering grants will be for 100 students a year and I\u2019m assuming for at least four years it takes to get the degree. Well, if you have 100 students one year and 100 students the next, each getting $10,000, isn\u2019t that $2 million a year? And of course in the fourth year of the program, it would cost $4 million a year.<\/p>\n Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine rightly points out that Kilgore opposed the tax increase that gave higher ed about $240 million extra dollars a year.<\/p>\n Kilgore also said he wanted to expand diversity at state schools.<\/p>\n Kilgore on Wednesday also tried to clarify his comments from last month’s debate that affirmative action programs kept “good, qualified students” out of Virginia schools.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I\u2019m not sure if he\u2019s talking about programs for racial minorities or geographic minorities. It\u2019s widely believed, and I don\u2019t doubt it, that there are geographic quotas that mean better Northern Virginia students lose out to students in other areas to maintain a geographic balance at state schools.<\/p>\n “It is the No. 1 complaint I hear, when I am traveling in northern Virginia or Hampton Roads, when a parent comes up to me and says, `My good student cannot get admitted into a Virginia college or university,'” [Kilgore] said during the July 16 debate with Kilgore, the first of this election year.<\/p>\n Kaine said those comments, together with warnings Kilgore gave state college officials two years ago about their affirmative action programs, show Kilgore is hostile to college efforts to achieve racial diversity.<\/p>\n “There’s plenty of ways to get a diverse (student) body,” Kilgore said. “I’ve said time and time again you get a good mix of urban and rural students, you base it on financial need, you base it on first-generation college students. If you base it on those issues, you’re going to get a very diverse student body, and we have to encourage college administrators and admissions offices to be out there seeking a diverse student body.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yeah, and you\u2019ll still get better students in some areas losing out to students elsewhere. Or is that what he\u2019s talking about? Who knows?<\/p>\n Sometimes when I read Kilgore\u2019s comments, I feel like the Aflac duck who looks stunned in the commercial where Yogi Berra says, \u201cThey pay you cash, which is just as good as money.\u201d Kilgore might say, \u201cI give you promises, which is just as good as money.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Give Kilgore extra credit for again taking the lead in proposing programs, this time in higher ed. It seems like we\u2019re always hearing that \u201cKaine\u2019s program will be announced soon.\u201d But again Kilgore fails the acid test as asked by Sen. Russ Potts, “How would he pay for those?” Kilgore says \u201cthe money for the… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}