Interesting piece in this morning’s Inside Higher Education about the continuing importance of tuition as a major funding source for public higher education in the U.S.
Despite a backlash in Washington and other states to several years of double digit tuition increases during the Great Recession, more than half of the states used tuition to generate more than 50 percent of their total educational revenue in 2017.
Although the state of Washington in total is still below the 50 percent threshold, that is mostly due to the higher level of state subsidy provided to the community and technical college system. The University of Washington still relies on tuition revenue to fund about two thirds of its core educational operations which represents some modest improvement from the earlier part of this decade but is still significantly higher than the levels seen a generation ago in the early 1990’s.
Revising the share of state support versus tuition revenue, was the major operating budget issue for the UW. During the recently completed legislative session the campus will be closely following a study by the Washington Institute for Public Policy. During this interim period funding ratios will be reviewed in other states and recommendations will be made to the Governor and the state legislature on changes that could be made in our state.