Shortfall Indicates Students Need Aid

What happened to the high school graduates who’ve been expected to swarm Washington state’s public universities?

This year, experts say, more graduates than usual took a look at tuition rates and said no thanks. Some found low-wage jobs and are working, one hopes, to save for college. Others went to community colleges, cheaper and closer to home.

This left two campuses - Eastern’s at Cheney and Washington State’s in Pullman - with significantly fewer students than they are funded to serve.

Last spring, wanting to do the wise thing after warnings that a flood of baby boomers’ kids is on the way, the Legislature provided funds for state universities to expand enrollment capacity.

Students did crowd into Western, Central, WSU-Spokane and the University of Washington’s main campus.

Enrollment at WSU’s campuses grew overall, but still fell 760 students short of what the Legislature funded.

At Eastern, enrollment dropped 400 students below last year, winding up 850 below what the Legislature had funded - a huge gap for a 7,000-student school.

What now?

Educational forecasters call this a downward blip that mustn’t distract policy makers from the big picture, which shows a steep increase between now and 2010 in the state’s population of 17- to 25-year-olds. Maybe so.

But there are worthwhile lessons to be learned from a year in which supply exceeded demand and students revealed by their choices how well the system is meeting their needs.

At Eastern, some soul-searching is in order. Why do would-be students consider it a secondary choice (as administrators admit), or not a choice at all? By comparison Western wasn’t always the coveted destination it is today; its push for instructional quality and links to a nearby community college paid off.

Drawing on the prosperous, populous Seattle area, the UW had no trouble packing its huge, prestigious educational assembly lines to capacity. The UW therefore finds it easy to favor tuition increases that would further fatten its budget.

WSU has strong academic programs, but like EWU it draws heavily from Eastern Washington where incomes are lower. The empty seats at both schools may be a warning that some find tuition-and-board costs an obstacle - a problem aggravated by the state’s meager financial aid programs.

Education funding is too precious to waste. Legislators should be sure community colleges receive adequate funding. And to take advantage of unused capacity in all of the state’s universities - private as well as public - they should expand financial aid so young people statewide can afford the education the next century’s knowledge-based economy will require.

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