Tuition going up at state colleges

Associated Press

SPOKANE — Students at Washington’s public colleges and universities better prepare for sticker shock.

Washington State University regents on Wednesday tentatively adopted undergraduate tuition increases totaling nearly 13 percent over two years, and other schools are expected to follow suit.

WSU’s regents unanimously approved resident undergraduate tuition increases of 6.7 percent this fall and 6.1 percent for 2002-2003 — the maximum allowed by state lawmakers under a budget proposal on its way to Gov. Gary Locke.

Western Washington University’s trustees on Friday tentatively adopted a hike for next fall at the 2001-2002 cap set by the Legislature, but held off on a decision for 2002-2003 tuition.

At the University of Washington, regents will meet July 5 to consider tuition and other matters, university spokesman Bob Roseth said. University President Richard McCormick has not forwarded a recommendation to regents.

Evergreen State College’s trustees are expected to take up the same issue July 11.

Until 1999, lawmakers set the tuition themselves. That year, they granted limited tuition control to the boards governing Washington’s six four-year schools and the Board for Community and Technical Colleges, which is due to consider increases for the state’s 34 two-year colleges at a meeting in Spokane Thursday.

At WSU’s regents’ meeting in Pullman, university President V. Lane Rawlins said he expected other campuses would follow WSU’s and WWU’s lead with increases at or near the maximum allowed.

"I do not favor high tuition, and I hate raising tuition," Rawlins told regents in recommending the increases.

But, he added, any smaller increases would force the university to cut academic programs and leave WSU short of what it needs to adopt state-mandated faculty salary increases.

WSU’s tuition for in-state undergraduates was $3,350 this past academic year — excluding student services and activities fees — and would rise to $3,574 next year. Even then, WSU tuition would remain below the average at schools of similar size and quality to WSU, Rawlins said.

Regents cited concerns about tuition costs that have far outpaced inflation for more than decade. They also worried about further burdening students who graduate in debt.

WSU student leaders grudgingly accepted the increases.

Higher tuition is needed "just to maintain the status quo of educational quality," student body president Jesse Keene told regents.

WSU’s graduate students will get something of a break. Rather than approving increases up to the maximum levels, regents approved graduate hikes of 3.5 percent for each of the next two academic years.

In 1995, state lawmakers abandoned a formula that set tuition at Washington’s top-rung research universities at one-third the amount of a student’s total instructional cost.

Today, tuition covers more than 40 percent of instructional cost, Rawlins said.