Published: Sunday, April 5, 2009
STATE UNIVERSITIES
Tuition rates must go higher
If Washington is to emerge from the recession and the current budget crisis with a stable, competitive economy, state budget negotiators must minimize the damage to higher education.
Budget proposals released by the Senate and House last week would gravely undermine a central cog in the state's economic engine: its four-year universities. The sheer size of the budget hole -- more than $9 billion over the next 27 months, before counting around $3 billion in federal stimulus backfill -- makes painful spending cuts unavoidable. For state universities, though, a considerable portion of that pain can and should be offset by tuition increases, an option made more palatable by planned increases in student financial aid.
The governor and the Senate both proposed 7 percent tuition increases for the state's six four-year institutions; the House put a 10 percent hike on the table. The universities are asking for 14 percent, an idea no one loves -- especially the university presidents who have proposed it. But facing cuts from which it could take years to recover, damage that would drain brain power and innovation from our economy, it's an option that makes sense.
A 14 percent hike would increase annual tuition at the University of Washington by $875; at Western Washington University, the yearly tab would go up by $601. For families earning less than $160,000 a year, though, the bigger bite would be offset largely -- in many cases completely -- by increases in federal PELL grants and an expansion of the Hope tax credit, which has been more than doubled to a maximum benefit of $2,500 a year for four years. That's money that comes right off the bottom line of a family's tax return.
Even with a 14 percent tuition hike, Washington's universities will remain more affordable than most comparable institutions in other states.
The alternatives are too dark to accept. The higher education cuts in the House and Senate budget plans go far deeper than any of the states identified as Global Challenge Peer States, leaving Washington at a severe competitive disadvantage. If enrollment levels are to be maintained -- something the House proposal demands -- many students will have no hope of graduating in four years because they won't be able to get into the classes they need.
As WWU President Bruce Shepard told the Rotary Club of Seattle last month, "universities cannot just be temporarily mothballed and then, later, started back up."
This state already needed to expand access to four-year degrees. Go too far backwards now, and our students and our economy could be stuck behind those of other states and nations for years. That's a future no one wants, and one that must be avoided.
Budget proposals released by the Senate and House last week would gravely undermine a central cog in the state's economic engine: its four-year universities. The sheer size of the budget hole -- more than $9 billion over the next 27 months, before counting around $3 billion in federal stimulus backfill -- makes painful spending cuts unavoidable. For state universities, though, a considerable portion of that pain can and should be offset by tuition increases, an option made more palatable by planned increases in student financial aid.
The governor and the Senate both proposed 7 percent tuition increases for the state's six four-year institutions; the House put a 10 percent hike on the table. The universities are asking for 14 percent, an idea no one loves -- especially the university presidents who have proposed it. But facing cuts from which it could take years to recover, damage that would drain brain power and innovation from our economy, it's an option that makes sense.
A 14 percent hike would increase annual tuition at the University of Washington by $875; at Western Washington University, the yearly tab would go up by $601. For families earning less than $160,000 a year, though, the bigger bite would be offset largely -- in many cases completely -- by increases in federal PELL grants and an expansion of the Hope tax credit, which has been more than doubled to a maximum benefit of $2,500 a year for four years. That's money that comes right off the bottom line of a family's tax return.
Even with a 14 percent tuition hike, Washington's universities will remain more affordable than most comparable institutions in other states.
The alternatives are too dark to accept. The higher education cuts in the House and Senate budget plans go far deeper than any of the states identified as Global Challenge Peer States, leaving Washington at a severe competitive disadvantage. If enrollment levels are to be maintained -- something the House proposal demands -- many students will have no hope of graduating in four years because they won't be able to get into the classes they need.
As WWU President Bruce Shepard told the Rotary Club of Seattle last month, "universities cannot just be temporarily mothballed and then, later, started back up."
This state already needed to expand access to four-year degrees. Go too far backwards now, and our students and our economy could be stuck behind those of other states and nations for years. That's a future no one wants, and one that must be avoided.
Comments
(