State Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, recently introduced legislation which would offer 50 percent tuition discounts at Virginia public colleges and universities to the dependents of faculty members who have worked for at least seven years at those institutions. The goal of this proposal is to provide an alternative form of compensation to talented professors who have suffered from a statewide salary freeze for public employees since 2007. Edwards and his legislative co-sponsor, Kaye Kory, D-Fairfax, deserve praise for recognizing the economic necessity of improving university faculty compensation. Their bill, however, does not offer equal consideration to all faculty since those without dependents would not benefit from the tuition discount. Understandably, Edwards and Kory are attempting to work within the political constraints imposed by a Republican-controlled General Assembly, but a much fairer approach to boosting faculty compensation would involve the state government appropriating significant additional funding for higher education which would allow universities to raise the salaries of all faculty members. Read more: