<p>You’re right. There were more low-income students 10-15 years ago, but also back then UVa had a lot more funding from the state to help off-set the cost of a UVa education. Since then we’re talking about a drop in state funding from 25% to 8% in 20 years. The only way UVa has been able to cover the huge loss of funding is by raising the cost of tuition, which in turn has squeezed out lower income students. Now, UVa is trying to do the right thing by offering lower income students an opportunity to study at Virginia at little or no cost.</p>
<p>To be honest, if the state of Virginia wants more poor students to attend UVa, it should do a better job funding UVa so that it doesn’t have to charge students more to attend. </p>
<p>To me what’s truly shameful is that for a public school, UVa receives only 8% of its operating budget from the state. UVa gets more money yearly from its alumni and its endowment than the state of Virginia.</p>