Washington State cuts tuition at state institutions

Last week, Washington State’s government announced that it would be cutting college tuition by 5 percent in the upcoming year and, by 15 percent in the following for a total cut of 20 percent for the 2015-2017 biennium.

College is about to become more affordable but, costs have been raising since before the recession. Are students at Central truly getting a new, good deal or, are they just getting what the classes before them had?

Students share excitement and frustration

“I hope that the recent decrease will make it easier for high-schoolers looking into post-secondary education but can’t necessarily afford the high prices,” Regina Carter, a senior public relations major said.

Carter is frustrated that the cuts are coming so close to when she’ll be done with school and, doesn’t think the university has done a great job of spreading the word yet.

“It is frustrating! I don’t think they’ve done an amazing job of spreading the news. I actually found out about it from my friend Tyler Wu, this coming year’s president of the University of Washington,” Carter said.

Breaking down the bill

“These offsets come after a year in which we focused intently on reducing costs,” a memo from George Clark, vice president for business and financial affairs said on Wednesday.

The state mandated budget cuts will be taken from the school’s “operating budget” which is one of the many things including student approved fees that makes up tuition.

The 2015-2016 school year will see a tuition reduction to $6904 and the 2016-2017 year will cost $5919. However, these cuts only apply to resident undergraduate tuition. Non-resident students and those pursuing degrees higher than a Bachelor’s aren’t covered and the school would be free to increase their costs if need be.

To cover the cuts, the state will be providing nearly $14 million in extra funds to university. Those funds will help make sure that layoffs aren’t necessary and, are completely unprecedented in the state’s history.

“The state budget fully funds CWU contracts with the Washington State Federation of State Employees and Public School Employees. Additional funding is provided to be used–at the discretion of each university–to increase compensation or implement other collective bargaining agreements. We are working now to see what compensation adjustment is possible for exempt employees, who have had just one general increase in the last seven years,” Clark’s memo said.

A long time coming

“It’s good public policy if you ask me, making college affordable,” Steve DuPont, Assistant Director of Government Relations said.

He and his counterpart, Director of Community and Government Relations, Ann Anderson have been negotiating with legislators in Olympia on Central’s behalf and have been working on these specific budget cuts since they were proposed in a different form in Fall of 2014 by Senator John Braun.

“We put out the word that we would like the legislature to get to a 50/50 split [in cost] with the universities if they really value higher education,” Anderson said.

Despite knowing about the bill in advance, Anderson and DuPont say they weren’t made aware of the 5 and then 15 percent model until the budget was sent out to universities.

“They never called us and said ‘will this work?’” Anderson said.

Anderson and other university employees were worried that not enough state funds would be supplied to offset the costs of cuts but she was pleasantly surprised when the official word came down.

“This time it looks like it will work for us,” Anderson said.

In previous years, the state has taken away money from higher education but this time, they’re giving more than a little back in support. A move, which may help to put a stop to deficits and cost raises which Central has had to rely on in past years to offset its negative budget which hasn’t been positive since 2007 according to Anderson and DuPont’s records.

“If they had cut the tuition without state funds, it would’ve lead to layoffs. This has never happened in Washington before,” DuPont said.

Both Anderson and DuPont voiced opinions that said they think this is a big win for the students at Central and, for the university as a whole. They made it clear, however, that this does not bring tuition back to where it was prior to Washington State’s recession.
“We’re turning the ship. We’re not back to where we were, I don’t know if we ever will be but it’s a good first step,” DuPont said.