Virginia has long recognized that access to higher education is not just a personal aspiration; it is a public good. The Virginia Tuition Assistance Grant (TAG), created in 1972 to help state residents attend nonprofit independent colleges, embodies that understanding in practice. TAG awards go exclusively to Virginians, ensuring that public dollars follow them to Virginia-based institutions. More than 50 years later, TAG remains an essential engine of opportunity and deserves continued support.
Virginia’s Tuition Assistance Grant: A smart investment in talent and opportunity | Guest column – Gilbert T. Bland
Since its inception, TAG has assisted about 340,000 Virginians and provided billions of dollars in direct aid, helping students earn degrees that strengthen families, communities and the commonwealth’s economy. Though not formally need- or merit-based, most recipients demonstrate financial need, underscoring the program’s role in expanding access rather than subsidizing choice for its own sake.
Having served as a trustee at both public and independent colleges in Virginia, I have seen our higher-education system from multiple perspectives. TAG supports students who choose smaller, mission-driven institutions known for close faculty engagement and strong outcomes. These students choose to be educated and likely stay in Virginia.
As workforce competition intensifies and technologies such as artificial intelligence reshape entire sectors, Virginia needs adaptable, well-educated citizens who can think critically and solve complex problems. Independent colleges play a vital role in that effort. They produce graduates in health care, STEM, education, business and liberal arts fields that cultivate communication, ethical reasoning and problem-solving skills that technology alone cannot replace.
A t the same time, demographic shifts are tightening the pool of college-bound students in Virginia and neighboring states, increasing competition for both young talent and future workers. Virginia’s independent colleges not only serve state residents but also attract high-achieving students from nearby states. By sustaining these institutions, TAG helps keep that talent in Virginia, reducing the “brain drain” that challenges so many states.
As a taxpayer-funded program, TAG should be judged by its results. In the current state budget year, Virginia invested roughly $112 million to fund a maximum $5,250 TAG award. This appropriation supports more than 23,000 in-state undergraduate and graduate students at 28 nonprofit private colleges and universities across the state. Those institutions, in turn, generated about $157 million in state and local tax revenue, creating close to $2 in tax revenue returned for every $1 in public dollars invested. And taxpayer support per degree at TAG-eligible colleges is only a fraction of the public cost per degree at Virginia’s public institutions.
The return on investment is not only fiscal; it is also social. Virginia’s nonprofit private colleges generate billions of dollars in annual economic output and employ tens of thousands of residents. Just as important, their students and faculty contribute hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours each year to schools, clinics, nonprofits, and civic organizations across the commonwealth. TAG does not simply fund education, but it fuels service, leadership and civic engagement.
Among the institutions supported by TAG are Virginia’s two private historically black colleges and universities — Virginia Union University and Hampton University. For generations, these HBCUs have educated Black professionals who lead in business, education, health care, ministry and public service. The commonwealth’s decision to provide a supplemental TAG award for its students rightly recognizes its role as an engine of social mobility and economic advancement. Emerging proposals to strengthen TAG for institutions serving Hispanic students, or for Virginia University of Lynchburg, reflect the same equity-minded vision.
