Olympia Updates

Senate Keeps Legislature in Control of Tuition. The Senate approach requires increases in state general fund appropriations for higher education institutions to correspond with any increases in tuition. The Legislature retains ultimate control over tuition which generally will increase at about 4 percent per year for resident undergraduates, graduates and professionals (there are higher rates for UW non-resident students and UW MBA students but that does not affect WSU students.) Other tuition packages may be proposed by an institution but the entire package must be approved by the Legislature. The legislation also ensures that a minimum amount of new enrollments are funded each biennium to keep pace with state participation rates.

House Gives Each University Tuition-Setting Authority. In contrast, a proposed House amendment would require the WSU Board of Regents to approve any tuition increase. It would allow the Board to raise tuition up to 5 percent per year for undergraduates and up to 10 percent per year for graduates and professionals. If approved by the Board, tuition rates could vary between WSU's branch campuses, between individual academic programs, and between semesters. There is no provision for additional enrollments as the population grows and nothing to keep the share of the cost of education paid by the student from rising.

• Resident undergraduate tuition at UW and WSU are set at identical rates by the Senate. For parents and students, WSU believes the Senate-passed version, sponsored by Sen. Jeannette Wood, R-Woodway, offers a reasonable assurance that tuition will increase at no more than a rate of 4 percent per year. Exceptions are when there is action by the Legislature to the contrary or a large growth in the average state personal income indexes.
• Tuition rates may be almost impossible to predict for future years in the House proposal and would be subject to action by each individual Board of Regents or trustees. If no action were taken, tuition rates would remain the same. Action by the Board could lower rates 5-10 percent as well as raise them 5-10 percent. Students and families will find it hard to determine how much money they should be saving for an education.
• The House proposal allows Regents to charge different tuition rates by term or programs. In other words, the Regents could set a different tuition rate for the fall semester than it sets for the spring semester. The Senate does not provide for different rates.
• The House would also allow different rates between campuses. The tuition rate for WSU Vancouver could be different than WSU Pullman. WSU Spokane and WSU Tri-Cities could have different rates. WSU does not seek this kind of tuition flexibility.

• Undergraduate tuition for Washington residents has increased at WSU from $914 per semester in 1990 to $1,517 in 1996. The portion of the cost of education paid by students, which was 25 percent in the late 1970s, and 33 percent in the 1980s, increased sharply from 36 percent in 1994 to 46 percent today. The Senate bill limits tuition to 46 percent of cost for WSU while the House proposal has no such limits.

• The Senate proposal is to be a permanent, long-term model for dealing with tuition, the House proposal is again less predictable. The House plan is a two-year "pilot" program that will end in two years and likely be rewritten by the Legislature at that time.
• For instance, both House and Senate budgets would permit a limited amount of new tuition revenues to be used for faculty and staff salary increases (up to 1 percent salary increase in 1998 and 2% in 1999). Yet funding could end in two years under the House tuition plan and force the university to make budget or pay cuts.
• Senate provisions that ensure that WSU enrollment at least keeps up with current participation rates in future biennia are not found in the House proposal.