Virginia lawmakers reach deal to save tuition program for military families

There is light at the end of the tunnel for some Virginia military families who were hoping Virginia lawmakers would revive a program that waives college tuition for qualifying military spouses and families.

The was at risk of being gutted.

Some military families were furious when the Virginia state budget gutted the popular program. Adding to the anger, the Virginia State Senate and State Senator Louise Lucas, did nothing to address the problems in a committee meeting when lawmakers came back for a special session two weeks ago.

But now, after pressure from military families, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers, Democratic leaders in the Virginia House and Senate announced a deal to keep the program alive.

"The Senate Democrats were worried about is that the program was financially unsustainable," said Democratic State Sen. Scott Surovell. "It was growing, growing completely out of control. And so what we had suggested is the taxpayers ought to be helping to fund this, instead of the students who were on financial aid or other students attending university. And the deal we ended up working with the House is that we're going to provide about $90 million over the next two years, so the taxpayers are funding these tuition waivers instead of students who are attending the colleges, middle-class families who are choosing to have their children attend in-state school or kids on financial aid. And I think it's a much better way to fund this program."

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has been vocal in recent weeks about his support for the program.

But Surovell hit back.

"The governor flip-flopped on this," said Surovell. "He was the one who proposed the initial restrictions on the program at the beginning of session. And then when we proposed the funding with taxpayer dollars, in our initial budget, the Governor proposed to cut the taxpayer funding by 50% on the program, and then after he signed the budget, all of a sudden he said, 'I 100% believe in this program."

Republican Del. Geary Higgins blamed Senate Democrats.

"Republicans, specifically Senator Bryce Reeves, tried to fix the VMSDEP concerns early in the session, but Democrats killed his bill in the Senate," said Del. Higgins. "The House already went down to Richmond and passed the VMSDEP fix unanimously, yet the Senate has failed to act. The only reason this hasn't been resolved earlier is a roadblock from Democrats in the Senate. However, I am confident that we can all work together and get this resolved in the next two weeks. The House goes back down to Richmond on July 18th, and I will again vote to repeal the bad language in the budget and keep the program funded."

"A mistake was made in the gutting of this program," Republican State Sen. Glen Sturtevant said this week. "Whether it was intentional or unintentional we will have those conversations down the road, but a majority of this legislature has said we need to have a full repeal and fix. This legislature needs to fully fix the changes to this program with a full repeal."

On July 2, Senator Lucas said she was happy to announce the deal between the House and Senate on VMSDEP.