Ex-governors say higher education slips as national priority

Richmond Times-Dispatch
October 1, 2009

By Karin Kapsidelis

Higher education has slipped as a national priority even though it is key to both the country's economic recovery and its standing as a world leader, four former governors said today.

"I think that higher education is at risk, and that message is not being communicated clearly and sufficiently enough," former Virginia Gov. Gerald L. Baliles told a coalition of business and education leaders at a daylong conference at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.  "We have to make clear the connection between investment and return . . . [and] in fact between higher education and the future of this country," said Baliles, a Democrat who served as Virginia's governor from 1986 to 1990.  Click here to read more.