VaHigherEd.com

Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore made it official today.  He is running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by John Warner.  Gilmore is the second former governor to announce his candidacy for the seat.  Mark Warner formally declared his candidacy weeks ago.  Political pundits expect Gilmore and Warner to be THE candidates in the race.

It seems that higher education is not a priority issue for either candidate - at least not yet.

Jim Gilmore’s campaign website  includes a list of six top issues.  Higher education doesn’t make the cut.  Though he does include this in his bio:

As Governor, Gilmore kept his campaign promises in both areas including hiring 4000 new teachers to reduce class sizes, reducing college tuition, implementing stronger educational standards, and for the first time ensuring all lottery profits went to education.

Mark Warner’s campaign website is set up differently.  It’s a blog, not a traditional website.  It’s only mention of higher education comes from this blurb in his bio information:

[Warner's] administration inherited $6 billion in budget shortfalls, and ended with a surplus that allowed the largest single investment in K-12 education in Virginia history, a reinvestment in one of the nation’s premier public college and university systems, and a record investment in cleanup of the nation’s largest estuary: the Chesapeake Bay.

Considering the increasing conversation in Washington about the need for a new GI Bill for those returning from service in Afghanistan and Iraq, it will be interesting to see what role - if any - the issue of higher education takes in Virginia’s U.S. Senate race.

Posted by Jeff Kraus