Washington’s three largest institutions of higher education could move away from funding chaos and the unpredictable shock waves of a fickle economy if they had tuition-setting authority. The only people who can grant them that authority are the people who possess it: members of the Legislature. And elected officials by nature are reluctant to cede power, even to experts.
But — just as many key funding decisions in K-12 education are made at the local level by school boards — it only makes sense to grant sovereign tuition-setting authority to major universities, in this case the University of Washington, Washington State University and Western Washington University. After all, as stated in Senate Bill 6562, “universities know their budgets and student markets better than the Legislature does.”
Most state senators have seen the wisdom in this theory. On Feb. 15, SB 6562 was approved in the Senate 29-19. (Joe Zarelli was the lone state senator from Clark County who voted with the majority). In the House, the companion bill was passed out of the Higher Education Committee on Tuesday. The chair of that committee is state Rep. Deb Wallace, D-Vancouver, who has expressed her opposition to the bill.
Wallace wrote in a recent op-ed for The Daily Herald in Everett that SB 6562 “gives too much power to a few unaccountable administrators and regents to set tuition rates.” She makes a reasonably good case for taking such a stance, noting that tuition-setting powers traditionally have been vested in elected officials by voters. But she should make that good case before the full House, and we’re glad her committee moved the bill on Tuesday.
We believe a stronger case is made in favor of sovereign tuition decisions. That’s why SB 6562 is supported not only by affected university presidents but by the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (because stable, sufficient funding protects higher-ed opportunities for transfer students). The League of Education Voters also supports the bill.
If Wallace and others fear these three universities might increase tuition too sharply, they should examine the legislators’ recent track record. Tuition increases ranging from 7 percent to 14 percent have been enacted for two consecutive years, as lawmakers struggled to overcome budget deficits. Under SB 6562, the cap for universities would be 14 percent, and tuition increases could not exceed an annual average of 9 percent over 15 years. Wallace is pushing a “compromise bill that will keep the accountability … in the hands of the public” and would cap increases at 7 percent annually.
No one likes tuition increases, especially the jaw-dropping hikes in the past two years that triggered student protests on campuses in Vancouver and statewide. But SB 6562 also has built-in safeguards. Tuition “may not exceed the 75th percentile of resident undergraduate tuition at similar public institutions,” and the hikes would be tied to approval of a performance agreement by the Committee on Higher Education Performance.
An even stronger protection is one that preserves and promotes financial aid programs. As The News Tribune of Tacoma noted in a recent editorial, under SB 6562, “even a household with an annual income of $95,000 would be eligible for some help.”
Another strong point in the bill is that parents of young children who are saving for college through the Guaranteed Education Tuition fund would be able to plan more accurately for those costs.
Presidents, regents and other leaders of these three universities know the ropes. Let them make decisions about tuition. We hope the full House approves SB 6562.
