This year the University of Virginia’s applicant pool increased to 51,000, breaking school records for the second year in a row. Virginia Tech also broke a record with 45,000 applicants.
Other state schools have not been as fortunate. In four years the number of students at Radford has shrunk by 23%, Longwood 22%, Mary Washington 17%, and Christopher Newport has lost 10% of its student body.
Low-income families have been harder hit by the pandemic than the wealthy. Community college enrollments in Virginia have dropped 14%, 23,000 students.
The average cost to attend a Virginia university is $13,000 for tuition and fees and another $12,000 for room and board. Those costs increased by 40% between 2009 and 2018 with little increase since then.
More information here at RTD.