On the same day that dejected students pleaded with the board of West Virginia’s flagship university not to eliminate its entire foreign languages department and dozens of other programs, Gov. Jim Justice said he was feeling hopeful about the future of education in the state.

“We’ve had tough times — there will be more tough times — but absolutely we are rising from the ashes,” Justice said Aug. 22, while signing a bill allocating $45 million for another state school, Marshall University, to open a new cybersecurity center 200 miles from West Virginia University.

Lawmakers approved the Marshall project, heralded as the nation’s “new East Coast hub” for cybersecurity, in a hastily called special session last month but rejected calls to send WVU funds to address its budget deficit, currently about $45 million.

  • gravitas_deficiency
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    1 year ago

    Does the faculty and administration at Marshall have more closely aligned ideology and politics with the legislators than WVU does? Because this looks an awful fucking lot like picking favorites.

    • taigaman@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      It smells like it, but the WV legislature has a tendency to pick WVU as its favorite. I’m not sure that this is exactly balancing the score, but it came as a surprise for me at least.

    • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      WVU certainly has fewer movies starring Matthew McConaughey made about them. Is it possible this is the real reason?