A pair of Virginia Tech alumni are making the largest scholarship commitment in the university’s history.
Jim and Augustine Smith are giving a $20 million endowment to the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine for in-state scholarships. The Smiths say they don’t want financial challenges to block regional medical students from pursuing their degrees in Roanoke.
Jim Smith says their hope is to boost the supply of local-grown doctors who will stay and practice medicine in western Virginia. Currently 40 percent of medical students from Virginia go out of state.
“If they come to Virginia Tech and they’re there in Roanoke, then the chances of them graduating and staying in western Virginia are a lot higher than if they were somewhere else and being recruited into western Virginia,” Smith says. “The key gets to be affordability. Can they afford to be there? And that’s where the scholarship comes in.”…