FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

RICHMOND — The State Council for Higher Education of Virginia (SCHEV) released its Budget Recommendations report for the 2022-24 biennium, which includes specific and targeted strategies to further align funding and policies to meet the Commonwealth’s goal of becoming the best-educated state by 2030. A second report details the Systemwide Capital Outlay Budget Recommendations for Higher Education. These recommendations are intended to serve as an overview of the system needs and to provide options for the Governor’ and General Assembly’s consideration to meet statewide needs.

For the 2022-24 biennium, SCHEV recommends approximately $700 million in new state general fund. The following are key highlights of the funding proposal.

• $208 million in financial aid programs to improve student success and funding for low- and middle-income students.
• $224 million for recruitment and retention of talent.
• $60 million to address equity and fairness in funding among institutions.
• $20 million to bring work-based learning and paid internships to scale.
• $85 million for institution-specific initiatives that support student success, talent pathways and inclusive excellence.

Other funding initiatives include investments in cost increases in non-personal services, enrollment growth at institutions below the state general-fund-per-student average, research, community outreach, collaborative initiatives and SCHEV agency requests.

For the biennial budgeting, the funding recommendations in the second year build on increases in the first year and recognize the full impact of the budget over the two years. This allows institutions to plan for more than one year, which leads to improved tuition predictability for students and families. In addition, for several investment areas, SCHEV recommends an institutional match totaling $130.7 million for the biennium.

Capital outlay recommendations include continuing to place a high priority on funding for maintenance reserve and recommends that institutions receive at least the amounts they had in the previous biennium. In addition, SCHEV staff recommends, if one-time funding is available in the biennium, that priority for the use of these funds be placed on support for maintenance reserve.

The full reports and all SCHEV reports are available at schev.edu/reports.

###

Media resources including news advisories, logos and releases are available at www.schev.edu/media.

The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia is the state’s coordinating agency for higher education. With Pathways to Opportunity: The Virginia Plan for Higher Education, SCHEV is dedicated to making Virginia the best state for education by 2030. For more on this statewide strategic plan, visit schev.edu/TheVirginiaPlan.