Tuition, fees, books could jump to $10,000

OLYMPIA — The cost of tuition, fees and books at the state's two biggest universities would jump to about $10,000 a year under a proposal unveiled Tuesday by Gov. Chris Gregoire.

Dropping her proposal of last month for a temporary tuition surcharge, the governor now wants to let universities increase tuition by 30 percent over the next two years to offset deep higher-education budget cuts. The proposal is welcomed by university leaders and appears to have some support from key lawmakers. Students, however, are not so happy.

"Clearly, it makes things more challenging, especially for working families," said Brandon Scheller, Washington State University's student-body president. "We want to caution universities that the higher tuition goes, the harder it's going to be to get students to come."

The governor's proposal would allow universities to increase tuition by 14 percent a year for the next two years, for a compound increase of 30 percent. Community and technical colleges could increase tuition by 7 percent each year.

Gregoire said she no longer supports a temporary, two-year surcharge as a way to offset budget cuts.

"It was simply a way of saying this should end after two years," the governor said. "I think that is naive. I studied it more."

The new proposal would increase undergraduate tuition at UW by $1,873 over two years, to $8,123. Add mandatory fees and books, and going to the university would cost students $9,710. At WSU, which has higher nontuition fees than UW, students would pay $10,364.

"We appreciate the governor bringing the proposal forward. It's something we've been advocating for, although it's not something we are excited about doing," said Randy Hodgins, UW's director of state relations. "This is about trying to protect the state's investment — not just in the University of Washington, but in all of higher education."

Hodgins noted that increases to federal Pell grants and education tax credits will mean that, for the first year anyway, families earning up to $160,000 would be no worse off.

House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, supports the proposal, as does Senate Democratic Caucus chairman Ed Murray, D-Seattle.

"I don't think we have any other choice," Murray said.

However, it's not clear where House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, stands, and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, was noncommittal. "It's not a decision that has been made yet," she said.

Paul Jenny, UW's vice provost for planning and budgeting, said that, based on the Senate budget, the tuition increase would allow it to keep cuts to a manageable 11 percent over two years. Federal stimulus money may reduce that amount further.

The proposed increases would bring in about $190 million for the four-year universities over two years, and $48 million for community and technical colleges.

In the current two-year budget, research universities such as UW were allowed to increase tuition by 7 percent and two-year colleges bumped tuition by 2 percent.

Gregoire's move is in response to deep cuts in the higher-education budgets proposed by the state House and Senate. The Legislature is looking for ways to reduce state spending by nearly $4 billion because of declining tax revenue amid the ongoing recession.

"My goal is to make sure that those doors remain open and we don't sacrifice the quality of education," Gregoire said.

"It takes years to assemble a talented work force at these colleges and universities," she said. "Higher education is not something where we can just turn the tap off today and put it back on after the recession. It would take us years to return to where we are. So I'm asking our families and our students to sacrifice a little bit."

Gregoire said she doesn't expect the proposal to harm the state's Guaranteed Education Tuition (GET) program. About 100,000 people have invested in the program, which allows parents to prepay tuition at today's rates, plus a small premium, and then use it for a child's education later.

Larry Lee, the GET program's deputy director, said the tuition increase would send the already-underfunded program further underwater but that things should bounce back once tuition increases return to historic norms.

"We are able to withstand short-term increases, so long as it doesn't continue to go up at that rate," Lee said.

The cost of GET units will increase May 1, and could go up again in September.

Gregoire said Washington's colleges and universities are a bargain compared to other states.

She noted that the average annual tuition at the state's two-year colleges is about $2,700 a year, compared to $3,000 in Montana and $3,200 in Oregon.

"Folks will say that's one of the great things about our community and technical colleges," Gregoire said. "[But] we're in a crisis. We should not resort to a second-class education system because we're in a recession. We need to step up to it and make sure we continue to have that educational quality for our students."

Even with the proposed increases in tuition at two- and four-year institutions, she said, "we're still the best bargain in town."

The advantage of the tuition increase, she said, is that it would become part of the overall tuition base and would not disappear in two years like a surcharge.

Gregoire's office said she doesn't expect the economy to improve enough in two years that the higher-education system could afford to lose the revenue from the tuition increases.

Andrew Garber: agarber@seattletimes.com

or 360-236-8268

Nick Perry: nperry@seattletimes.com

or 206-515-5639

Information in this article, originally published April 8, 2009, was corrected the same day. A previous version incorrectly stated that a proposed 14 percent tuition hike would allow the University of Washington to keep budget cuts to a manageable 11 percent, based on the House budget. In fact, the figures are based on the Senate's proposed budget.