Real Change News | Upping the cost of public higher ed

April 15, 2009
Vol: 16 No: 18

News

Upping the cost of public higher ed

by: Shannan Lenke Stoll , Contributing Writer

30 percent tuition hike said to hurt neediest students

A crisis in bloom on the UW campus: larger classes, higher tuition, less admissions.

Photo by: Joshua Huston , Contributing Photographer

Printer-Friendly Version

Like it? Share it!

Making up for a $9 billion Washington State budget deficit seems like a Herculean task, and it is. After all, the categories being dragged under the guillotine – like human services, health care, natural resources and their management, public safety, education – are all basic public goods. Which is the best good of all? The legislature’s proposed budget cuts will decide.

The current legislative session –which ends April 26 – will decide the 2009-2011 budget and, if the proposed House and Senate budgets are any indication, it is clear that the current Washington state legislature does not value higher education, well, highly.

Proposed cuts to higher education – 23 percent of funding in the Senate plan, and 31 percent in the house – surpass those in every other state in the country, save one: Nevada.

In addition to the jobs provided by dozens of research labs and administrative offices that help keep the UW research engine running, tens of thousands of students enter the University of Washington every year hoping to earn a degree and then a better living in a more fulfilling job.

Administrators and student advocates say budget cuts would mean fewer teaching assistants and thus larger classes, less individual attention, and longer time to obtain a degree as students are unable to get classes needed to graduate. And the UW would have to deny admission to 10,000 students each year at a time when the current job market makes a degree more valuable than ever.

Those able to study could face a 14 percent annual tuition increase over the next two years – that’s about a 30 percent increase in tuition by 2011 – to make up for the cuts in state higher-ed funding.

Proponents of this proposal – led by UW President Mark Emmert and supported by Governor Chris Gregoire – argue that tuition hikes will keep the cogs of the state university engine lubricated without negatively impacting low- and middle-income students. The stimulus plan passed by the federal government, they say, will offset increased tuition. The federal government’s plan increases Pell Grants – available to economically disadvantaged undergraduates – by $1,000 and a tuition tax credit available to middle-income families earning less than $160,000 per year to $2,500 per year for four years.

With increased federal aid, students could still afford to attend UW while the state spends less on higher education. Sounds pretty good, right?

Maybe.

David Parsons is the President of the UAW Local 4121, a union of graduate and undergraduate UW employees, including TAs, many of whom could lose their jobs under the current budget cuts. He calls the proposed tuition hikes and reliance on outside sources of financial aid – including federally subsidized Pell Grants and tax credits – a “so-called high tuition/high aid model” comparable to expensive private schools.

“We have major concerns for what this means for access to public education by diverse groups,” says Parsons. “A study done by the Economic Opportunity Institute on the University of Michigan – one of the best examples of high tuition/high aid – showed that even when there is high financial aid (and often times there’s not and students fall through the cracks)… the sticker shock of high tuition deters diverse students and first generation college students. Navigating the financial aid maze seems daunting. So there’s definitely evidence that suggests that this model disproportionately affects underrepresented groups.”

Parsons describes a trajectory towards increased privatization of public education at the UW, noting that Emmert is also asking that the legislature let the UW set tuition as high as it chooses for out-of-staters.

If that proposal were enacted, Parsons says, tuition hikes would happen with little open debate, because “students and their families can’t hold [the Board of Regents] accountable the way they can public officials.”

Washington’s tax system – one of the most regressive in the country – relies heavily on a sales tax. Gregoire opposes an income tax, though it’s hard to imagine our already lofty sales tax getting much higher.

Perhaps, as some have suggested, severe cuts to higher education are a political scare tactic to garner public support for unpopular increases in the sales tax. The money for public services, after all, has to come from somewhere. But should it really come from our students?

If you think about the tuition hikes in terms of the overal revenue crisis, says Parsons, “the students are being taxed via tuition, despite the fact that public education is clearly and undisputedly a public good. At the very least this is regressive, and arguably it’s unfair when other high-income Washingtonians are not being asked to shoulder the burden.” n

----