With the legislative houses several hundred million dollars apart on a final biennial budget, and the official end of the session coming this week, a special session is all but certain. Dozens of important fiscal and policy bills also await action. Read an update from Olympia here.
Category: State Budget
Statement from UW Interim President Phyllis Wise on House budget
“It is discouraging to see half of the state’s appropriation for the UW disappear in the space of two biennia. On the one hand, we are grateful that the House budget writers recognize the links among tuition, state funds, and financial aid. When the state does not have the funds to support higher education, raising tuition and preserving the state need grant are mechanisms by which we can try to maintain excellence and access. However, it is disappointing that the dramatic shift in who pays for higher education in our state continues and that students will bear an even greater proportion of the costs for education. While it may enable us to weather this storm, it is certainly not a viable long-term strategy. We need a different model for funding the university.”
Revenue forecast bodes ill for higher education
The recent decline in the state’s tax revenue projections leaves higher education especially vulnerable, according to the editorial page of the Tacoma News Tribune. “… destroying college opportunity is like selling the children to pay the groceries.”
Alumni of Washington universities come together as advocates
Higher education is at a crossroads. The recession has led to dramatic cuts in higher education funding. To prevent further cuts, “the alumni of the University of Washington, Washington State University and Western Washington University have come together like never before and are raising their voices to call attention to the challenges facing higher education and the need for the Legislature to step in and save our universities,” write the presidents of the three alumni associations.
State’s March Revenue Forecast down $700 Million
Unfortunately, on this St. Patrick’s Day, the state’s revenue forecast has the state seeing more red than green.
For more detail on what the numbers mean for the UW and the state, visit the OPB blog here.
State’s newspapers comment on higher ed crisis
The editorial boards of the state’s largest newspapers have commented recently on the crisis in higher education.
The Walla Walla Union Bulletin (editorial not available online) commented March 3, “Higher education in Washington state isn’t getting the respect it deserves nor the cash it needs from state lawmakers…. Lawmakers need to accept their responsibility as stewards of state-owned schools and make sure they are adequately funded and remain affordable.”
The Wenatchee World commented March 2, noting that the proposed budget cuts will mean loss of staff, higher tuition, and longer time to earn a degree. “We have engineered our budgets and are designing a system where acquisition of knowledge beyond the 12th grade is an unsupportable luxury. Avoidable or not, we will regret it.”
The Olympian editorial board on March 1called for the legislature to grant more tuition flexibility to the state’s universities in order to help them offset impending budget cutbacks, “As distasteful as the bills might be to students and their parents – the original legislation acknowledges that the state is not funding higher education at an appropriate level and if they hope to continue to serve as public institutions, colleges and universities need flexibility to make up budget shortfalls with higher tuition. It’s not ideal, but it is fair and equitable.”
The Seattle Times on Feb. 20 said “…the Legislature must get behind a road map charting a better course for universities struggling to pay for the level of access and academic quality state residents expect.”
In a Feb. 19 editorial, the Spokane Spokesman Review said, “Our leaders are great at selling the value of higher education and its importance to the overall health of national, state and local economies, but they fail in keeping the doors of public institutions propped open to qualified students. In fact, the rhetoric seems to rise in inverse proportion to the investment.”
The Tacoma News Tribune on Jan. 30 commented on the connection between higher education and jobs in Washington, “The Legislature this year doesn’t have the money to preserve college opportunity in Washington. It should at least get out of the way and let the universities do it themselves.”
Olympian newspaper calls for giving higher ed tuition authority to offset budget cuts
The Olympian newspaper, in an editorial, calls for giving the state’s universities the flexibility to make up budget shortfalls with higher tuition. The editorial points out that current proposals, if enacted, could mean that state funding of the UW has been cut by half in just three years.
UW describes potential effects of large budget cuts
In response to a request from legislative leaders, Interim President Phyllis Wise outlined the effect of budget cuts that were at the level of the governor’s proposed cuts (about $189 million) plus 15 or 30 percent. Those effects could include:
- Up to 500 fewer Washington residents in the freshman class
- Loss of up to 1,800 jobs on campus
- Potential consolidation of two schools, as well as the loss of other degree programs
- Annual tuition increases of 23 to 30 percent
- Increased time-to-degree of as much as three academic quarters, increasing a student’s tuition needs by $8,700
The Olympian described the potential effects as “troubling.” The Seattle Times called the scenario of cuts at the UW and elsewhere in higher education as “grim.”
Read Wise’s letter to the legislators here.
New coalition to advocate for higher education in Olympia
The formation of the College Promise Coalition was announced yesterday. It brings together students, parents, faculty, alumni, labor and business leaders, and education advocates in order to urge the legislature to make higher education a top priority.
Briefing on week three of legislative session
Margaret Shepherd, director of state relations, conducted a briefing via Skype at the beginning of the third week of the legislative session.