Just in case college students weren’t unhappy enough with the proposed tuition hikes…
When Gov. Chris Gregoire proposed 14 percent tuition hikes over the next two years, I and most of the other reporters in the room reported that as a total 28 percent hike.
"Totally incorrect," writes alert reader Pamela Dixson. She points out, quite correctly, that the second year's 14 percent would compound on the first year's, making the increase even higher than it seems.
Net effect, courtesy of the calculator function on my Mac: It's nearly a 30 percent tuition hike over two years.
Which brings me to something that I meant to post yesterday: Washington State University has joined UW in publicly backing the idea of 14-percent-a-year tuition hikes.
WSU resident undergraduates currently pay $6,218 per year. The WSU Board of Regents would have the authority to raise tuition up to $870 per year. That would be an additional burden on students and their families. But the governor pointed out that it is far less of a burden than the cost of a student paying up to $10,000 in additional tuition, housing and other living costs to attend school for an additional semester. Student may need to attend an extra term because classes necessary to graduate have been cut. The governor noted that WSU has the “Cougar Commitment” that covers all tuition costs for students that qualify for the state need grant. Families with incomes of $52,600 to $96,000 per year receive additional benefits through the new benefits of the Hope tax credit. The Hope tax credit began as a $1,800 deduction for two years. The federal credit has now been expanded to up to $2,500 per year for four years.
Students, not surprisingly, are unhappy with this idea:
This economy has affected students and their families’ ability to afford higher education in a variety of ways beyond increases in tuition. Family budgets are getting tighter due to layoffs and cut hours reducing parents’ ability to contribute to their children’s education. Students who rely on summer employment to offset the need for loans are going to find fewer opportunities for employment and will be competing against a larger pool of job seekers. Those soon to graduate face horrible job prospects and large amounts of debt equivalent to an educational mortgage.