Smaller enrollments of in-state students and lower than projected graduation rates are among the main reasons that Virginia State and Norfolk State universities got failing grades on most of the performance measures set by the State Council of Higher Education, according to a report released Monday.

The two HBCUs, along with Christopher Newport and Longwood universities, must provide improvement plans to address the issues SCHEV found.

The issues were noted in the SCHEV report resulting from a mandatory review of the performance of the 17 state-supported institutions of higher education, including the community college system, for the fiscal 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 fiscal years.

SCHEV requires institutions to meet 95 percent of performance projections on each of six measures.

Only six institutions did. Virginia Commonwealth University, which failed on two measures, was among the remaining seven institutions that fell short in one or two areas.

VSU and NSU fell short on five of the measures, while CNU and Longwood missed four, SCHEV noted Monday.

Both VSU and NSU fell short of meeting the 95 percent target rate on SCHEV-approved projections of enrollment for in-state students.

During the two-year period, NSU averaged 92.3 percent of the SCHEV enrollment goal, but was just shy in the 2017-18 fiscal year. In 2018-19, NSU was five-percentage points below the target.

VSU hit or exceeded the enrollment goal in the 2017-18 fiscal year, but fell to 93.2 percent, or 2.7 percent short, in the 2018-19 fiscal year.

On graduation rates, NSU awarded an average of 83.7 percent of projected diplomas during the two-year period, far short of the 95 percent target. NSU also awarded an average of 76.2 percent of its projected degrees in the STEM-H areas involving science, technology, engineering, math and health.

During the two-year period, VSU awarded an average of 79.1 percent of the diplomas and 88.2 percent of STEM-H degrees SCHEV had projected, both short of the 95 percent goal.

SCHEV’s performance standards also measure enrollment of upper class students, the award of degrees to Black and other minority students and the acceptance of transfer students from community colleges and other two-year institutions.

NSU and VSU both hit SCHEV’s 95 percent goal for sophomore, junior and senior enrollment, the one measure both passed.

Separately, Virginia State also is the only one of the 17 state-supported universities that failed to achieve certification on financial and administrative measures after state auditors dinged the school for mishandling two federal agriculture program grants since 2015.

VSU has agreed with SCHEV’s finding that VSU “has an anticipated material weakness in internal (financial) controls” related to its management of two National Institute of Food and Agricultural grants. VSU is responsible for repaying NIFA after spending the money on items for which it was not allowed to use the federal funds.

Internal documents the Free Press has reported indicated that VSU might have mishandled $12 million in NIFA grant funds, but the university has reported that NIFA might be due a collective $4 million.

VSU has been given a year to resolve the grants issue, but will face a SCHEV review in the summer of 2021 to determine whether it should maintain certification for extra state funding and benefits available to institutions that pass the finance and administrative review.