Higher ed programs remain

in new state budget, tuition will rise

By Eric Francavilla, Tri-City Herald/Murrow News Service

OLYMPIA — The budget passed by lawmakers early Wednesday will keep colleges and universities from cutting more programs but tuition still will increase, Tri-City educators said.

Rich Cummins, president of Columbia Basin College, said numerous CBC programs were on the line before lawmakers passed the budget with no additional cuts to higher education.

Cummins said he planned to release in May a list of instructional programs the college would consider closing if lawmakers cut funding.

But now he doesn’t have to.

“We started these discussions with cuts of 13 to 15 percent, so the work the Legislature did to get this down to a zero-cuts budget for higher education is terrific,” Cummins said.

Vicky Carwein, chancellor at the Washington State University Tri-Cities campus, told the Herald she also is pleased, but cuts made in the 2011-13 budget still are hurting the university.

“We’re kind of treading water,” Carwein said.

The Tri-City campus has eliminated vacant faculty positions to make up for the more than 50 percent in state funding cuts in the past four years.

“Our priority is going to continue to be offering courses that our students need,” Carwein said.

CBC has taken a different approach, Cummins said, preferring to eliminate entire programs if it means saving others.

And while administrators deal with faculty and programs, students will continue to face rising tuition.

The 2011-13 budget already assumes tuition will increase another 16 percent for WSU and 12 percent for CBC during the 2012-13 school year. The supplemental budget made no changes to the tuition increase schedule.

Chris Mulick, spokesman for WSU, told the Herald colleges and universities cannot continue to provide the same quality of education if lawmakers make cuts and expect tuition jumps.

“As you tear down the education infrastructure, you just can’t build it back up overnight. So it’s critical we put the brakes on that,” Mulick said.

Both WSU Tri-Cities and CBC have maintained steady enrollment, despite cuts to funding, but they could be growing, Carwein said.

But compared with Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposal at the beginning of the session, which would have cut WSU funding by 17 percent and CBC by 13 percent, the nocuts budget moves higher education in the right direction, Mulick said.

Eric Francavilla, a Herald intern from Washington State University, can be reached at eric.francavilla@email.wsu.edu.
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