UW, Western criticize college tuition plan

A proposal by the Higher Education Coordinating Board on how the state and its universities should share costs for undergraduate education did not get a warm welcome from those institutions at the board's Tuesday meeting.

The draft policy calls for the state to pay 55 percent of the cost to educate undergraduates and the universities would pay 45 percent.

The state currently pays less than half the cost of undergraduate education at four of the state's six four-year public universities.

Representatives of the University of Washington and Western Washington University told the board they strongly oppose the proposal. They believe the idea could limit their ability to balance budgets and offer the quality of education they have promised to their students.

Both university speakers wondered what would happen in a year like 2009 when the state dramatically cut dollars going to higher education: Would tuition have to go down as well to keep the ratio at 55-45?

"We need more flexibility, not restrictive policies," said Catherine A. Riordan, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Western. She said after her presentation that the state's other four-year universities have expressed similar concerns about the proposed new tuition policy.

Ann Daley, executive director of the board, clarified that the change would set a policy goal, not a rule, and asked if that explanation would change Western officials' opinion on the idea.

Riordan said she would agree with the philosophy of the state paying a majority of the costs to educate undergraduates, but the numbers in the report made the idea look more like a regulation than a goal.

The proposed new tuition policy includes a few recommendations both universities liked: more flexibility so universities can set their own tuition, and the possibility of charging different tuition for different majors or for lower level classes and upper level classes.

The draft report that contains the proposed new policy was created at the order of the 2009 Legislature, which also authorized tuition increases of up to 14 percent for the next two years at the state's four-year universities.

The HEC Board has done 15 tuition policy studies since 1990, according to staff members who presented the draft of its most recent study on Tuesday.

All those studies found tuition and fees are growing faster than median family income, and when the state decreases its financial commitment to higher education, tuition and fees increase dramatically.

Everyone is looking for a more stable way to pay for higher education in the state, but the latest proposal attracted exasperation from the university representatives.

"Something has to help us weather the next three years and this doesn't strike us as a recipe for that," said Doug Wadden, executive vice provost of the University of Washington.

The University of Washington offers lower undergraduate tuition than its peer institutions - schools such as the universities of Michigan and Minnesota which compete with UW for students. Wadden worries that this proposed policy would further hinder UW in its goals to compete with the other research universities.

"Flexibility is what we need," Wadden said. "This idea could do lasting damage."

Mike Bogatay of the Washington Student Association, who spoke after the university representatives, expressed concerns that tuition flexibility would result in tuition increases outpacing financial aid.

"There is basically a black hole about what student debt would look like in this model," he said.