... an alumnus of GMU. For those who are interested in politics, there is also the unique opportunity of being so close to our nation's capitol that internships on the Hill are definitely a possibility.

the College of William and Mary 32nd, and Virginia Tech 71st. These universities - and education in general - are the keys to Virginia's economic future in the 21st century.  The question is, will we invest the resources needed to keep our schools among the best in the nation...or not?

William and Mary cannot even pay for all of it's own services. Their endowment is small and they get frequent cuts from the state. Private funds are used to pay for operations rather than advancements. Sad times for them.

And if you read any news article about the new US News rankings the administration will quickly point out that WM is in the top schools despite having only the 111th largest endowment in the country.  It is practically a point of pride for the College.

As for "operations rather than advancements" - what do you call the new building for Education (primarily paid for by the Commonwealth), the new Business School (primarily paid for by Chip Mason), a new dorm, a new integrated science center for biology and chemistry, and an ever-expanding program - Gateway - for low-income students (paid for primarily by private donors, but also with state help)?

I really want to know - if the state of operations/advancements are "sad times" for William & Mary - what do the good times look like?  I've known the school for 16 years and haven't known it in better shape.  So please - tell me what my school could be doing better.

I completely agree that it is a great day that we have new buildings. The problem comes in that we could be doing so much more if it were not for this mentality that we do so well with so little. So many are prideful of that, and I am too, but we cannot allow that to limit our ability to get more. A lot of our projects are funded privately or sometimes by the state when we pull their teeth. The College itself does not generate enough funds to pay for all it does and the endowment is not large enough to really help pay. We have strict hiring freezes and noncompetitive (and also largely frozen) salaries for professors and plenty of staff. We cannot afford to renovate much of the infrastructure until we find someone to pay for it. Gateway was so controversial because, as great as it is, it is expensive and the BoV doesn't think we'll have the money for it. The fact that by the end of the year most operations are paid for with private money is shocking. When we do not collect enough donations you get situations like Swem having to cut a million from its operating budget and running departments at half strength because there is no money to employ the people needed. Thank God for all the fantastic faculty and especially the staff who are willing to soldier through this because they love the College so. I wish we had the money from the state to put more private money into the endowment rather than having to spend it every year. As it stands, every time there is a tax collection shortfall across Virginia, the universities get phone calls to slash budgets. We always do well because we're good at that but imagine a moment if we had a quarter of the finances of Harvard. We would be destroying them in national ratings and more people from under privileged communities could attend college. That is what we are missing out on because we are all too proud of doing "so much with so little."

but CNU will have to get its 4 year graduation rate above 12% and GMU will have to do the same with its 26% graduate, before they can be considered comparable to UVa, W&M, VTech, JMU and UMW.

The 4 year grad rates of ODU (17%), VCU (18%), Longwood (39%), Radford (34%), GMU and CNU are an embarassment.  

They are directly related to an insufficient number of teachers and classrooms for students to satisfy their course requirements to graduate on time.

The idea that the Commonwealth would build a new university in Abingdon before addressing these absymal graduation rates at its existing schools is absurd.