Business School, Continuing Education, and business educational options

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University is located in Blacksburg, Virginia, a town of about 40,000 in the western part of the state, near Roanoke. We know the school best as Virginia Tech, the place where 32 students plus a student gunman lost their lives on April 16, 2007.

Virginia Tech is a public land-grant university, accredited by SACS, that has 22,000 undergraduate and 4,000 graduate students, for a total student body of approximately 26,000. The institution offers degrees in a wide range of fields.

Students and faculty are gradually returning to the campus, looking forward to opportunities and challenges in the 2007-2008 school year.

But all is not well. The school is facing additional, and unnecessary, stress from the relatives of those who were killed and also from those who were wounded on April 16. According to the Washington Post (Aug. 19, page B6) many people are lining up, expecting monetary compensation on the same scale that was accorded to the relatives of those killed in the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001. Now, as then, no amount of money can compensate people for the loss of a loved one, but still people expect money.

The average nontaxable cash compensation that was given to relatives of those killed on "9/11" was about a million dollars, mostly taxpayer money. The nontaxable compensation that will be given to "4/16" victims and their relatives, however, is from private donations. The compensation schedule is as follows:

• $132,000 to families of slain students
• $90,000 to students wounded and hospitalized more than 10 days
• $40,000 to students wounded and hospitalized up to 9 days
• $10,000 to students who came face-to-face with the gunman but were not wounded

At least seven families have retained counsel and intend to argue that the money they are slated to get is insufficient. According to the Post, that's too bad; the university was not negligent in any way and it is protected by the doctrine of sovereign immunity. Still, the threat of litigation is a dark cloud that hovers over the entire Blacksburg campus.