An editorial from The Herald-Dispatch
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Whoever is calling the shots at the Capitol in Charleston next year may want to think twice about continuing the recent trend of reducing state aid for West Virginia’s higher education institutions. Curtailing support for those institutions could undermine a key economic component of the state at a time when the Mountain State’s struggling economy needs all the help it can get.
The point was underscored last week by a study from West Virginia University’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research gauging the economic impact of 21 higher education institutions on their respective local economies. The study, sought by the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, concluded that those universities and colleges contributed about $2.7 billion overall to the state’s economy in 2014 either directly or indirectly…