2024-07-02T21:38:30.059ZThe Virginia Capitol in Richmond (Steve Helber/AP)RICHMOND — Leaders of Virginia’s House and Senate struck a deal on Tuesday to repeal new limits on a costly college tuition program for military families, likely defusing an issue that had inflamed veterans’ groups in an important election year.Both chambers will return to Richmond July 18 to vote on legislation that will fully repeal restrictions that were meant to rein in the soaring costs of the Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Program. Identical House and Senate bills also will provide $45 million a year for the next two years — on top of $20 million a year already in the two-year budget — to cover the cost, lifting that burden from the universities and from other students, who had some of the expense passed on to them.In reaching that deal, the Senate dropped recent demands that the limits be reinstated after a year and that students maintain a D average in their major to remain eligible.The breakthrough came one day after the Senate reconvened to consider lifting the restrictions but walked away empty-handed for the second time in two weeks. Following that disappointment, Democrats publicly sparred with each other and Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) over the impasse in the hours before they struck the deal.“A full, clean repeal with additional financial support for the VMSDEP program, unencumbered by any other provisions, is great news for our military heroes, first responders, and their families,” Youngkin posted on X.Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee Chairwoman L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) said the terms were agreeable to her given that the state’s Joint Legislative and Audit Review Commission has already begun to review the program and make recommendations by Sept. 1. She also noted that a separate work group on the program “will provide us with the answers we need to ensure this program will be sustainable long-term to serve veterans and their families.”“Making education affordable for all students is a priority for us all,” Lucas, who will carry the bill in the Senate, said in a written statement.Del. Luke E. Torian (D-Prince William), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, will carry the bill in the lower chamber.“This agreement ensures that there is a full repeal of the changes adopted in May to the VMSDEP and related tuition waivers and provides financial certainty for military families attending college as I had hoped for,” he said.The program was created in 1930 to aid the families of World War I veterans and has been expanded over the years to include out-of-state residents, graduate students and relatives of service members with non-combat-related injuries. The price tag has risen sharply in recent years, from $12 million in 2019 to more than $65 million last year. Universities have borne the cost or passed it onto other students.The restrictions, which took effect Monday with the start of the state’s fiscal year, limit eligibility to Virginia residents pursuing undergraduate degrees. They also require participants to tap federal aid, such as Pell Grants, before accessing the state program. Students already in the program were grandfathered in, as was anyone who applied to college before May 15.Tucked in the state budget that won bipartisan support from the House, Senate and Youngkin in May, the restrictions were meant to address the program’s rising costs. Fierce pushback from families followed, and Youngkin and legislators quickly pledged to come up with a fixTensions rose Tuesday, as Youngkin claimed in a Channel 8 TV interview that Democrats had sneaked new limits on the program into the state budget without his knowledge.“We had struck a deal that they were going to send me a clean budget,” Youngkin said on TV. “And then they tucked in some of this language at the last minute.”In fact, Senate Majority Leader Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax) and House Speaker Don L. Scott Jr. (D-Portsmouth) noted, the plan to curb the swelling costs had originated with Youngkin’s office.“I think Governor Youngkin and the Republicans in the legislature have done an excellent job of gaslighting the public as to who’s actually to blame for this,” Surovell (D-Fairfax) said. “They ought to take a long, hard look in the mirror.”Scott said he was “disappointed” in Youngkin for making the claim. Youngkin knew exactly where things stood, Scott said, pointing out that the governor acknowledged the issue in the state Capitol hallway as he spoke with military family advocates on his way in to signing the budget.“I was standing right there, I was a witness,” Scott said, referring to an interaction that was recorded on video and posted to X. “I wish and I hope he would stop seeing this as a political opportunity when it’s so important that we take care of these heroes and their families … It’s cynical and beneath the governor to try to do this.”Youngkin’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the Democrats’ cri