House Gop: Let Each School Set Price
House Republicans on Friday proposed giving college trustees authority to raise or lower tuition by up to 10 percent a year, but a key senator said the upper chamber would never go along with that plan.
The new House plan, drafted by the powerful appropriations chairman, Tom Huff, R-Gig Harbor, and backed by Higher Education Chairman Don Carlson, R-Vancouver, would end the longstanding practice of the Legislature setting all tuition rates.
The proposal puts the House at odds with the Senate, which recently approved legislation that allows only limited autonomy for the campuses. The proposal, SB5927, would set in motion automatic annual tuition increases of 4 percent or the growth in per capita income, whichever is lower. It would allow colleges to petition the Legislature for variances and would let the UW charge considerably more for its law and master’s in business administration programs.
That bill passed the Senate 42-7. Senators will not accept the House’s local home-rule plan, said Senate Higher Education Chairwoman Jeannette Wood, R-Woodway.
“To say I’m angry puts it mildly,” Wood said in an interview. “They have removed all the predictability and affordability we were after in the Senate. It is not going to get through the Senate.”
She conceded that the House hadn’t promised to go along with the Senate bill, but added she was surprised by the turn of events.
“I was surprised that they changed it so much; it has lost all predictability,” she said.
Wood was more measured in her comments when she testified before Carlson’s committee Friday, explaining why a bipartisan Senate majority produced the bill it did.
“Why is the Senate unwilling to give some authority to the institutions?” Carlson asked her.
“This is the philosophical position of the Senate” that the responsibility should lie with the Legislature, she replied.
In turn, Huff told the committee the Senate approach is “flawed as an educational policy and flawed as budget policy. A one-size-fits-all system will not meet our needs.”
The House plan would be “market-driven,” allowing schools to fill up their classrooms at the optimum tuition, he said. Some colleges could cut their rates and others could charge more, particularly for high-demand courses, he said.
Washington is one of only a few states that still set tuition at the state level, Huff said.
The Washington Student Lobby sided with the Senate approach. Tuition is a form of tax and should be levied by elected lawmakers, the group said.
“We are content with the Legislature setting tuition,” agreed Scott Morgan, budget director for the state community college board.
UW lobbyist Sherry Burkey said the university could support either proposal. WSU lobbyist Larry Ganders said his college prefers the Senate approach, fearing “tuition could vary wildly from institution” under the House approach.
Gov. Gary Locke’s education adviser, Sherie Story, said the governor is somewhere between the two houses. He proposes an automatic annual increase for resident undergraduates equal to the growth in per capita income. That would be 4 percent this fall and 4.3 percent in the fall of 1998. Local governing boards could set different rates for all other categories of students.
If a standoff develops, the most likely outcome would be for an annual 4 percent increase to be written into the new budget, along with provision for a study on a more permanent solution, observers said. xxxx TUITION PLAN DETAILS Here are the high points: Individual boards of regents and trustees, rather than lawmakers, would set tuition, within limits set by the legislation. For resident undergraduates at the four-year schools, trustees could raise or reduce tuition by up to 5 percent a year. For out-of-state students and all graduate and professional students, regents could raise or lower tuition 10 percent per year. The state Board for Community and Technical Colleges would set a uniform rate for all 33 community colleges. But all of the four-year schools would be “de-linked,” meaning they could charge whatever their trustees decided, rather than the same as their peer institutions. Currently, the University of Washington and Washington State University charge the same tuition, and the four regional universities - Western, Central, Eastern and Evergreen - charge identical tuition. For every $1 in new tuition, 30 cents would have to be set aside for student financial aid. The House plan would be in effect for two years, with an interim study on a long-range tuition policy.