Without Reform, School’s Out For All

We hate to rain on the closing days of summer, but when youngsters head back to school this fall they’ll do so beneath a cloud. They have to get nearly perfect grades. They need more money in the bank than they can earn. Parents no longer can take it for granted that their kids will go to college. Costs and entrance requirements are getting prohibitive.

Current political and demographic trends will make this problem worse.

Young people are a state’s most precious resource. They need advanced education to fulfill their potential and fuel the modern economy. If they don’t get it - and without reform many won’t - we’re in deep trouble. So it was an act of leadership when Gov. Mike Lowry announced the other day that he has named a task force to propose a new financing system for Washington’s public colleges and universities. Headed by former House Speaker Joe King, the group is supposed to submit recommendations by July 1996.

The public desperately needs what this task force aims to provide. Here’s why:

Already, increasing student demand and a lack of capacity to meet it has forced universities to toughen entrance requirements. The minimum high school grades needed to enter Washington’s top public universities are getting closer and closer to a perfect 4.0. That’s absurd. It leaves high school students little leeway to make a mistake, to survive a lousy teacher, or to enroll in a difficult class.

This year, children of the baby boomers began pouring out of high schools. By 2010 the number of college applicants will exceed the capacity of Washington’s current university system by 37,000. That’s more than today’s total enrollment at the University of Washington. If the state declines to serve these young people, it will exclude them by toughening entrance requirements further.

It now costs about $10,000 a year to attend one of Washington’s public research universities. The part-time jobs with which previous generations worked their way through college can’t produce that kind of money. Meanwhile, conservatives want to cut taxes, slash spending and raise user fees. What does that imply for tuition, enrollment capacity and financial aid?

Under the dynamics that shape the state budget, prisons and K-12 education enjoy virtually automatic funding guarantees. Higher education doesn’t. It faces an automatic funding crisis, every year.

Parents have to wake up and demand a new approach. It’s up to the task force to propose one. The alternative, denying the next generation the tools needed for a 21st century career, is unthinkable.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board