Inslee and Higher Ed: Disappointing

The past week has not been a good one for high­er edu­ca­tion. As Gov­er­nor Inslee (look­ing back to before Novem­ber, it feels nice to call him ‘Gov­er­nor’), released his bud­get pri­or­i­ties last Thurs­day, it includ­ed a rec­om­men­da­tion for tuition to increase 3–5% (3 per­cent for region­al uni­ver­si­ties like West­ern Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, 5 per­cent for Wash­ing­ton State Uni­ver­si­ty and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton). This is com­bined news from the mid­dle of March that the tuition increas­es in Wash­ing­ton are the sec­ond worst in the nation, rank­ing only behind Ari­zona. This also runs against the log­ic assert­ed by a recent poll which found that vot­ers in Wash­ing­ton state over­whelm­ing­ly sup­port increased fund­ing to high­er education.

While this news con­tains a bit of per­son­al relief (I was raised in Ari­zona), Inslee’s rec­om­mend­ed tuition hike will add on to the near­ly $4,200 increase in tuition since 2008. While more mon­ey is pro­posed for finan­cial aid, this does noth­ing to solve the afford­abil­i­ty issues in high­er edu­ca­tion, espe­cial­ly because of the grow­ing “dead-zone” com­prised of stu­dents whose fam­i­lies make too much to receive finan­cial aid, but not enough to actu­al­ly pay for col­lege. In addi­tion, low income stu­dents are scared away by the “stick­er shock” of high tuition prices, regard­less of the aid they receive.

Addi­tion­al­ly, Inslee’s pro­pos­al cre­ates a “com­pet­i­tive enroll­ment pool” for schools to com­pete for mon­ey to increase slots for Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy, Math­e­mat­ics, and Engi­neer­ing degrees. This is sim­i­lar to Gov­er­nor Gre­goire’s bud­get before she left office, but ignores high­er edu­ca­tion as a whole, even though he acknowl­edges how much tuition has increased in his bud­get pri­or­i­ty document.

In oth­er news detri­men­tal for our sys­tem of high­er edu­ca­tion, the Wash­ing­ton State DREAM Act is dead. Despite a coali­tion of immi­grant, stu­dent, and youth orga­ni­za­tions, HB 1817  failed to be put to a vote in the Sen­ate High­er Edu­ca­tion Com­mit­tee, despite hav­ing the votes to go into law.  Although the cur­rent Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader, Rod­ney Tom (~-Med­i­na), sup­ports the DREAM Act, this either calls into ques­tion his effec­tive­ness as Major­i­ty Leader or his sup­port of the DREAM Act itself.

This out­come is not expect­ed, see­ing as after the hear­ing for the Act last Thurs­day Sen­a­tor Bar­bara Bai­ley, the Chair of the Sen­ate High­er Edu­ca­tion Com­mit­tee, pub­lished an op-ed say­ing that the DREAM Act was an unfund­ed bill, despite sup­port­ing a bill that would allow more than 1,000 stu­dents attend­ing West­ern Gov­er­nors’ Uni­ver­si­ty access to the same source of finan­cial aid. West­ern Gov­er­nors’ Uni­ver­si­ty is an entire­ly online uni­ver­si­ty, and it seems that Sen­a­tor Bai­ley would rather sup­port a very pecu­liar form of edu­ca­tion rather than see stu­dents who are undoc­u­ment­ed, stu­dents who are striv­ing to achieve their degrees and have over­come giant obsta­cles to be at the best uni­ver­si­ties in the nation for degree com­ple­tion.

The next step in high­er edu­ca­tion fund­ing will be when both hous­es of the leg­is­la­ture release their bud­get. As this process hap­pens, stu­dents are strug­gling to pay for col­lege, and uni­ver­si­ties are strug­gling to retain fac­ul­ty and staff that will con­tin­ue offer­ing the qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion stu­dents need for suc­cess. Addi­tion­al­ly, it will be crit­i­cal that fund­ing for high­er edu­ca­tion comes from new rev­enue, as if it orig­i­nates from cuts to oth­er pro­grams it will affect stu­dents just the same, as many cur­rent and future stu­dents rely upon pro­grams such food assis­tance the same as non-stu­dents in our state. In fact, these pro­grams con­tribute to pro­vid­ing stu­dents the oppor­tu­ni­ty to earn their degree.

Gov­er­nor Inslee’s bud­get pri­or­i­ty pro­pos­al was dis­ap­point­ing regard­ing high­er edu­ca­tion, and while it includ­ed much need­ed invest­ments in K‑12 edu­ca­tion and health­care, it is crit­i­cal that high­er edu­ca­tion is made more afford­able and acces­si­ble for stu­dents in Wash­ing­ton; both cur­rent stu­dents and stu­dents to come. Whether the Sen­ate will do so with­out cut­ting oth­er pro­grams is unsure; the best chances for the best bud­get for all parts of our state, a respon­si­ble bud­get for our com­mon­wealth, will like­ly come from the House.