Panel: Big funding infusion essential for state's colleges

OLYMPIA — Public investments of more than $1.1 billion will be needed in the next two-year budget cycle to prevent massive tuition increases, student enrollment caps and the loss of quality professors at Washington's two- and four-year colleges and universities, according to a recommendation passed yesterday by the state Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Board member James R. Faulstich, citing over-enrollments of more than 20,000 students in the past two years and an estimated 30,000 new students expected during the next decade, said the state can wait no longer to address the problem.

"There comes a point where you can't keep thinning the soup and still have soup," Faulstich said. "To not have a place for (students) would be the worst. We don't think — as a board — that that's tolerable."

The board recommended new funding of $659 million in the first budget cycle and $441 million in the second. The board also recommended $952 million in new money for capital projects at state schools.

But lawmakers in both political parties say that with the state facing a $2 billion budget shortfall in the 2003-05 biennium, finding more money for higher education will be difficult, if not impossible.

"We're in competition in cutting the (budget) pie," said state Rep. Phyllis Gutierrez Kenney, D-Seattle, chairwoman of the House Higher Education Committee. "It's going to be a very difficult, difficult time."

Over the past decade, higher education has frequently lost out in budget battles to other programs and agencies such as Medicaid, welfare and the state Department of Corrections.

The HEC Board recommendations, which now go to Gov. Gary Locke and the Legislature, are based on the belief that Washington's universities have reached the financial breaking point.

The HEC Board, a 10-member citizen advisory panel, released research this week showing that state funding at Washington institutions of higher learning is 9 percent below the average spending per student at peer institutions nationwide.

To make up that funding gap, state public institutions have been forced in recent years to impose double-digit tuition increases. At Washington State University and the University of Washington, for example, tuition and fees for undergraduate state residents have risen 106 percent in the past 10 years, according to HEC Board research. At regional schools such as Western Washington University and The Evergreen State College, tuition and fees have gone up more than 50 percent. And at community and technical colleges, those costs have jumped 79 percent over the same period.

Board members predicted schools will have no choice but to continue raising tuition if the Legislature, which convenes in January, doesn't provide more funding.

But in addition to skyrocketing tuition, many state schools also have stiffened admission standards, cut academic programs and turned away thousands of qualified students because of a lack of space and instructors.

Bob Craves, co-founder of Costco Wholesale Corp. and HEC Board chairman, said the board will be working with schools, legislators and others to unveil possible funding sources at its next meeting in December. Several other groups in the state also are expected to offer higher-education-funding proposals in coming weeks, most notably former Govs. Booth Gardner and Dan Evans.

Robert Marshall Wells: 206-464-2607 or rwells@seattletimes.com