Heciel Nieves Bonilla, News Editor
VCU is facing millions in unfunded costs for the upcoming fiscal year as it juggles tuition affordability with spending mandated by the state and other pressures.
The potential fiscal gap includes millions of dollars in state-mandated tuition waivers, which cost VCU more than any other university in the state this fiscal year, according to Lee Andes, the finance policy and innovation director at the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia.
Tuition waivers allow students to pay less than the total price of attendance for university. VCU’s total cost per in-state undergraduate student for 2025-26 was $17,240 and $32,368 including room and dining, according to admissions.
State-mandated waivers are applied to certain groups of students through legislation, but are paid for, at least in part, by universities themselves.
“These programs represent lost tuition revenue for the institutions, though to the extent the amounts are predictable (they don’t always know at the point of admission if a new student qualifies), these programs are factored into the institution’s overall budget,” Andes stated.
Those programs remove the cost of tuition and fees for Virginians who qualify: the children and spouses of killed public safety officials, National Guard and Virginia Defence Force officers, some international students, senior citizens and military survivors and dependents.
The Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program accounts for 96% of the price of state mandated waivers, and its cost has risen at an “extreme” rate at VCU, according to a previous report by The CT.
VCU expects the waiver to raise its expenses by $9 million, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Another cost the university is bracing for is a 2% raise for state-supported employees which was proposed in the state budget. The state would cover half of that cost, and VCU would cover the other half — an estimated $6 million, per the RTD’s reporting.
Also down the pipeline is a possible repeal of Virginia’s ban on collective bargaining for public employees. If the ban is repealed and VCU employees negotiate higher wages for themselves, that could also impact VCU’s finances.
In VCU’s 2025-26 budget document, further expenses in the university’s Education and General fund (E&G) are attributed to “academic and research excellence, contractual or inflationary increases, mandated salary increases (VCU and the state split the cost), and mandated military waivers for which VCU’s costs exceed state support.”
The E&G fund concerns the “core academic programs and essential support services” at VCU and represents about half of the university’s $1.7 billion budget this fiscal year.
Over half of the E&G fund, or $464 million, comes from tuition and fees, with $321 million of state funding. The university prioritizes keeping students’ “net price” low in its budget preparation, according to VCU spokesperson Mike Porter.
“It is always our goal to efficiently use state support and reduce costs wherever possible in order to minimize impacts on tuition and fees,” Porter said.
The university will discuss budget matters at the board of visitors’ enrollment and budget workshop on Mar. 24. The next full board meeting will be from April 23 to 24.
During the latest board meeting, VCU chief financial officer Meredith Weiss listed several projects the university is completing or seeks to start which will also require state support, including new dorms and the acquisition of the Altria Center near its medical campus.
“We’re grateful to the commonwealth for the contributions they give us towards capital projects, and so we always do our very best under [VCU facilities management head] Richard Sliwoski and his team to not only complete them on time but bring them in under budget,” Weiss said.