Virginia disputes federal claim that it underfunded an HBCU

The government of the commonwealth of Virginia is pushing back against a claim by the federal government that it underfunded Virginia State University, a historically Black land-grant institution, according to The Progress-Index.

U.S. education secretary Miguel Cardona and agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack wrote to Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin last month to explain that VSU had been underfunded by $277 million over the past three decades compared to Virginia Tech, the state’s other land-grant institution. Cardona and Vilsack sent similar letters to the governors of 15 other states.

In the letter, the secretaries said that according to calculations using the ED’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, VSU “has not been able to advance in ways that are on par with Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.”

 But Aimee Rogstad Guidera, Virginia’s secretary of education, countered in a letter obtained by The Progress-Index that VSU had received more funding per student than Virginia Tech in 13 out of the past 15 years. She obtained that figure using state data, which she said was more accurate than data from IPEDS.

“The commonwealth has met its obligations for our 1862 and 1890 land-grant institutions,” Guidera wrote.