Governor Bob McDonnell is praising lawmakers for making it easier to get a college education in Virginia. Wednesday, he announced tuition and fee increases at state universities are the lowest they have been in a decade.
Those tuition and fee increases will only jump up an average of 4.1 percent across the state this year, which is almost half of last year's 7.9 percent increase.
However, it is still higher than the projected tuition hike at the University of Virginia. UVA announced in April in-state students will only see a 3.7 percent cost bump this year, to just more than $25,000.
The governor says the statewide reduction will help universities like UVA continue to attract the best in-state candidates.
"They have more opportunity now to go to school in Virginia, close to home, with lower tuition than going out of state and paying somebody else's out-of-state tuition or a private university," he stated.
Tuition and fees have increased 91 percent at state universities over what they were 10 years ago. The governor says it is time for that to stop. McDonnell says new investments in higher education, and cuts made by institutions will help keep the cost of higher education in Virginia low.
This all comes as Virginia works to add 100,000 new college graduates by 2025, a goal of last year's "top jobs" education reform bill.
