Until recently, the cost of higher education had been on the rise, but in a historical decision by the Washington state legislature, tuition is finally seeing a decrease.

“I hope that the recent decrease [in tuition] 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.

In an unprecedented move, Washington state legislature voted to reduce tuition cuts will take effect in the 2015-2017 biennium.

“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.

The 2015-2016 school year will see a tuition reduction down to $6,904 and the 2016-2017 year will be reduced to $5,919. However, these cuts only apply to resident undergraduate tuition. The school is allowed to increase the tuition of non-resident students and graduate students.

To cover the cuts, the state will be providing nearly $14 million in extra funds to the 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,” Clark said. “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.”

Kelley Christianson, interim director of Student Financial Services, said students who utilized direct loans will find that the rate will remain unchanged. She also said the Federal Pell Grant increased the award amount from $5,730 to $5,775.

Christianson said that Central students’ State Need Grant amount was reduced to $7,284 for 2015-2016 from $7,631 in 2014-2015.

A long time coming

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

Dupont and Director of Community and Government Relations Ann Anderson have been negotiating with legislators in Olympia on Central’s behalf. They have been working on these specific budget cuts since they were proposed in a different form in fall 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, 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.

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

Both Anderson and DuPont 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 the price it was prior to Washington’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.