Soaring tuition costs slam door on student

This editorial appears in the July 11, 2010, Yakima Herald-Republic.

It's an equation that makes sense -- the better the education, the better the paycheck.

So when the Legislature allowed tuition rates to rise 14 percent each of the past two years as a way of replacing lost state funds, lawmakers promised that these increases would not imperil access to education. It would make little sense, they argued, to limit this access if the state was serious about improving a sputtering economy.

Guess what? The tuition hikes did exactly what critics had claimed they would do: limit access to higher education.

According to a report by the state's Higher Education Coordinating Board, more than 15,000 students who qualified for State Need Grant funds didn't get them. That figure is three times the number from the previous academic year.

The State Need Grant is the state's largest financial aid program for needy students.

What's wrong with this picture? Suddenly, the door to higher education is being slammed in the faces of lower- and middle-income families. These students are ready and willing to go to college but can't cover the costs due to limited financial resources. That's where the State Need Grant program was supposed to kick in. But that's not the case. Despite lawmakers setting aside an additional $18 million to help students next year, the demand far exceeds the pool of financial aid. That leaves prospective students on the outside looking in.

Most troubling is what will happen to those trying to attend Central Washington University. The higher tuition rises, the tougher it will be for in-state students to attend CWU. And these in-state students represent the bulk of Central's student body -- some 93 percent.

University officials predict that if trends continue, a decade from now students at CWU could be paying up to $12,000 in tuition per year, more than twice the $5,514 they are paying today.

But lawmakers persist in believing tuition hikes are not the culprit. This year, legislators cleared a plan that allows the University of Washington, Washington State University and Western Washington University to increase tuition each year for the next seven years. Annual tuition increases would not be allowed to rise higher than 14 percent -- with the provision that the average annual increase over a 15-year span wouldn't exceed 9 percent.

In return for this legislation, the three universities agreed to yearly performance reviews and to maintain financial aid grants at the present rate.

What will happen with respect to tuition rates for Central and the other state institutions will be determined in January when lawmakers meet to decide the state's next two-year budget.

We feared that when tuition hikes started soaring, the ability to gain access to higher education would steadily be reserved for only the wealthy. The report on the 15,000 needy students failing to secure financial aid does little to ease those concerns.

* Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are James E. Stickel, Bob Crider, Spencer Hatton and Karen Troianello.