A compromise offered earlier this week by Sen. Thomas Norment Jr., R-Williamsburg, passed the committee uncontested Wednesday and appears to be set for Senate approval.

This is good news for the University of Virginia's College at Wise.

"It's my understanding that the University of Virginia would include its College at Wise for many of the benefits," says Sen. William Wampler Jr., R-Bristol. "That means the university's Board of Visitors will be making many of the decisions that relate to the Wise campus."

Wampler says the college presently enjoys unprecedented interest and cooperation from the university's governing board.

"We would be part of the university's agreement with the commonwealth," says Sim Ewing, the college's vice chancellor for finance and governmental relations. "If the bill passes, we would gain the same freedoms and responsibilities."

Senate Bill 1327, the Restructured Higher Education Financial and Administrative Operations Act, was drafted to answer criticism of other bills. Critics said the bills were elitist and gave up too much power to the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech and the College of William and Mary.

It was submitted to the education committee Tuesday. The legislation addresses procurement, personnel and capital outlay issues.

"Generally, the colleges want some relief from state government bureaucracy," Wampler explains.

For example, Wampler says universities would be able to set their own standards and negotiate their own contracts for things such as computers.

"In personnel, they have to come to us every year and ask us to grant them positions for faculty and administrative personnel," Wampler says. "You've got to think that, in most cases, the institutions pretty well know what they need and what the proper mix is."

On capital outlay, the bill allows universities with an AA or better bond rating to seek their own financing for construction projects. Presently, only the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech would qualify, although some supporting the measure believe William and Mary could easily obtain the preferred rating.

While the plan includes certain exceptions for UVa-Wise, as it does for William and Mary's Richard Bland College and its Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, Ewing says the benefits are obvious.

"This is a very good bill for UVa-Wise," he says. "It will allow us more freedom to take advantage of situations - to build buildings faster, but it does not allow us to lessen the quality of the product.

"We're lessening some of the approval and review process on the back end, but we still have to meet all of the codes."

The fact that buildings could be built more quickly will result in savings in administrative costs and inflation, Ewing says.

Wampler says the freedom from bureaucracy will come at a price of higher accountability from the universities to the governor and legislature.

"What most parents ask is whether the tuition is going to be affordable," Wampler says. "We're going to give a greater flexibility on the amount of tuition, but we are going to demand that those students who need financial aid will have the opportunity to continue their education.

"That's their part of the bargain - they must provide access to quality education at an affordable level."

The colleges maintain that the charter system would allow for more efficient operations that would create costs savings over time.

As the legislation stands now, colleges would have to submit six-year plans to their boards, the governor, the legislature and the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

While the plans could result in scrutiny and manipulation by the governor and lawmakers, it offers some predictability in projecting long-term tuition and enrollment estimates.

Early bills addressing the charter issue limited the benefits to the three top universities and their component schools. The measure now in front of the Senate includes all of the state's high education institutions, including community colleges, breaking them down into tiers or levels.

Benefits of the bill and the autonomy of the institutions would vary by tier. Supporters of the concept say all of the schools will benefit and that they will have the opportunity to improve their status within the structure.

The bill must still gain support of the full Senate and House before being sent to the governor. This means it is subject to revision or failure along the way, but Wampler is optimistic.

"Something from this effort, from the charter initiative, is going to end up passing," he says.

"It will allow us to have at the forefront meeting student needs rather than addressing the byproducts of guidelines," Ewing says.