Gregoire announced in a press release Jan. 5 that if Washington state was unable to support the finances of higher education institutions, universities would be allowed to increase tuition prices so their doors could remain open.

Tuition prices are dictated by the legislature, along with the amount of funding universities receive.

Paul Cocke, director of Communications and University Relations, said previous cuts to higher education by the state legislature have been huge. The next round of cuts being proposed will reduce state funding to universities by half.

“Our state is simply not making the needed investment in higher education,” Cocke said.

The proposed budget would also reduce funds for the state work-study program by $21.3 million and suspend a number of financial aid programs, according to the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board.

The proposal has to be approved by other arenas of legislature before it becomes official this April.
Cocke said if the state does decrease funding and higher education institutions will be forced to increase tuition prices and students and families could feel the financial burden.

“There is a long road to go down before we have an actual budget, and nothing has changed today at Western as a result of these proposals, nor are further budget adjustments immediately imminent,” said President Bruce Shepard in a message to campus Dec. 15.

Gregoire’s proposal for the total state budget would give only 8.3 percent in support to higher education. As 60 percent of the state budget is protected and cannot be changed – including the K-12 public school system – higher education is one of the institutions hit by budget cuts, according to a press release.

The proposal does not cut funding in all areas of higher education; it provides $91.6 million for the State Need Grant Program. The program is designed to help the state’s low-income undergraduate students pursue careers and hone skills by providing grants that can be used at eligible universities throughout the state.  Western is one of those institutions.

Bill Lyne, president of the United Faculty of Washington State and Western English professor, is a strong advocate for higher education, he said.

The United Faculty of Washington State is a representative group for faculty at Western, Eastern, Central and Evergreen Universities. Members of the group, including Lyne, have been highly critical of Gregoire’s budget proposal.

“What [the governor’s proposal] means is that we will be in great danger,” Lyne said. “Our students will be paying more and getting less. The ridiculous logic they come up with is they imagine that our funding can continue to go down and that our degree production will continually go up."

Instead, he said, the degree will continually be worth less.

The board has said that it is too early in the legislative process to be able to comment on the effects the governor’s proposal could have on higher education.

Gregoire also announced her desire to create a single cabinet-level department of education that will bring various educational organizations throughout the state together.

“We must create a single Washington education system focused on student learning,” Gregoire said. “We must step up to build and maintain the world-class education system Washington deserves.”

“Complete to Compete”

A noticeable change in Gregoire’s proposed budget for higher education is a transition in how funding for public universities is distributed. The Baccalaureate Performance Incentive Program, a new initiative also known as

“Complete to Compete,” calls for funding to be based on the number of degrees earned and the amount of student achievements rather than the number of students enrolled.

“There has been a national trend to try and focus on outcomes and not fund on the basis of inputs,” said Marc Webster, Budget Assistant to Gov. Gregoire. “We don’t want to fund enrollments, we want to have graduates. We are holding the institutions accountable for what they produce.”

The goal behind the incentive program is to spur four-year public institutions to innovate new methods to move students through programs faster. The initiative would call for universities to compete against their own past performances for $5 million in funding.

Washington state ranks 48th in the nation in graduating students with bachelor’s degrees, Cocke said.
Because of this, Gregoire said she believes it is important now more than ever to make sure the state’s public universities are doing their part to ensure the success and graduation of Washington state residents.

“These are performance-driven funds,” Gregoire said in a press release. “Colleges and universities will compete for them on the outcomes and results they achieve. They must show they are advancing more students toward graduation.”

Within the next eight years, two-thirds of jobs created will require a college-level education, according to Partnership for Learning, an independent, statewide nonprofit organization that communicates about Washington state school improvement efforts.

In order to meet these demands, Washington state will need approximately 6,000 more students graduating with bachelor’s degrees per year. There are currently 108,000 students in four-year universities across the state.

This is the third year in a row that state legislature has faced a budget hole of multiple billion dollars. The immediate implications of the proposed budget are still unclear for Western, Cocke said.

“The university is committed to the core mission,” Lyne said. “What I do have confidence in is the process that we have set up to do that will work as well as it can.”