The bill to increase undergraduate tuition by 14 percent (that’s the figure in the budget) is getting a hearing in the Senate now.

Watch live at TVW or tvw.org.

Tags: tuition increase

Today at the press conference, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown said the budget agreement between the Senate and House would be finished today — possibly very late.

Joe Turner at The News Tribune reports that it will be available online at 9 a.m.

That’s when everyone will get a much better idea how much they stand to be cut. And, of course, when the tuition increase voted on yesterday will be disclosed.

Tags: Budget, tuition increase

The House just passed the bill that allows for an unidentified increase of tuition — somewhere above 7 percent, but they haven’t disclosed it yet.

For a pretty good idea of what was said, read the complete post below (don’t miss after the jump, where most of the debate occurs.)

The bill passed 50 to 47. It now heads to the Senate.

Tags: tuition increase

“We made a commitment to (7 percent) two years ago, and put it into statute and who knew what things would be like now … none of us wanted to go there,” said Rep. Kathy Haigh, of increasing undergraduate tuition by up to 14 percent. The “up to” is the key: “As we finalize the budget we will see what the actual percent increase will be.” The bill does not specify the “up to” part, however. See the report here.

Rep. Glenn Anderson: “If we are about helping the folks that go to these institutions and there is going to be a dramatic increase in the cost of a four-year degree — a 70 percent increase in the cost of a four-year degree — there should be some give on those institutions,” he said, referring to the instructional staff to noninstructional staff ratios at public universities (2 non-instructional staff for every 1 professor/instructional staffer — compared to 1:1 in community colleges.) “Seven percent is a good figure. Anything above that is asking too much without reform.”

Rep. Mike Armstrong: “I’m going to oppose this bill … it’s about our families: It’s about middle income families sending their kids off to college… we put a 7 percent cap on this for a reason: We want to make college affordable.” “We need to think long and hard before we simply raise tuition and put the burden on middle class families.” He said the tuition increase will mean families will not be able to send their children to college.

Debate continues. Click more to read the rest. (more…)

Tags: tuition increase

As you might expect, the Washington Student Lobby is not in favor of the plan Governor Chris Gregoire laid out yesterday, which involves an up to 14 percent tuition hike at 4-year universities and an up to 7 percent increase at community colleges.

They say in a release that it would amount to “using the debt capacity of middle-income families and students to balance the budget.”
See the full release here.

Tags: Higher Education, tuition increase

I posted the other day about Terry Teale, with the Council of Presidents (of four-year universities) saying universities wanted the authority to raise tuition by 14 percent. Sen. Rodney Tom told her it didn’t pencil out, essentially.

Rich Roesler at the Spokesman-Review took some time to figure out the details. Here’s what he found:
“Bug here’s why a huge tuition increase would be hard for lawmakers: parents have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the state’s Guaranteed Education Tuition plan, which lets you prepay now — plus a significant surcharge — for college credits your kid will use years from now.”

Read the whole post from the above link. Thanks, Rich!

Tags: tuition increase