Demand is up. Costs are up. Yet the Seattle P-I editorial board argues that the University of Washington should keep tuition down.
More families will be able to afford a school their kids can’t get into. And this solves the problem how?
Washington simply has not kept up with demand for slots at our state colleges and universities, and keeping tuition below market rates while refusing to provide sufficient state funding to make up the difference is not going to help anybody. Exporting college students is not a long term economically sustainable policy; we will over time lose many of our best and brightest to regions with better and more plentiful public and private university systems.
Of course we could as a state rededicate ourselves to investing in human capital, sinking billions more each year into higher education… but that would require raising taxes, so it ain’t likely to happen anytime soon. The alternative then, is to change the way we subsidize colleges and universities, moving away from our per-student subsidy to one based on financial need.
Under such a model, tuition would be allowed to rise closer toward market rates, with much more of the full cost of one’s education reflected in the actual price. Then the state subsidy, which is now spread somewhat evenly amongst all students, would be funneled into an aggressive and generous financial aid program.
Those families who could afford to pay the full price of educating their children would do so. The rest would get financial aid in the form of grants on a sliding scale based on ability to pay. Such a system, if executed properly, would pump more revenue into our colleges and universities and fund more slots, while keeping college affordable for lower and middle income families.
Or.. we could continue to make it harder for WA students to get a quality education, regardless of ability to pay.
The UW is sitting on multi-billion dollar endowments and you argue for more spending?
The UW has tons of money. Force ’em to educate the kids for less than they are now. Freeze the wages of the profs. Make ’em work for their pay.
Whatever happened to market-based economics? Colleges are completely marxist in their economies, having to provide no proof their product is viable.
Sure, we could use endowments to increase tuition subsidies for the poor as well. That’s a great idea…
Oh, wait, you weren’t suggesting that, were you?
Yes, because telling workers “you suck, no pay raise for you” is an AWESOME way to motivate employees to do better jobs, as well as retaining them. It’s not like a PhD could find a job elsewhere, right?
Really? You think there’s no proof that education is a valuable product for a society to invest in on a collective basis? Fascinating. Perhaps we should charge people money to speak or learn English, while we’re at it.
The reason why we don’t let markets determine prices and values for EVERYTHING is that there are instances where we have competing values- so we do things like create “public goods” as a society. Yes, we have problems like free rider problems when we do this… but we consider the positive benefits of having the public good important enough to outweigh the downsides.
Goldy,
Wingnutz (see #1 abv.) will not like your proposal since it makes too much sense.
Currently, we are capping the supply of educational services and exporting students. Those will high abilities and no dough get frozen out. Those with less than stellar ability, but still college grade material are frozen out. Doesn’t strike me as good social policy.
cmiklich needs to take a basic econ 101 class. Gawd, what a display of ignorance.
@1: “….having to provide no proof their product is viable.”
The fact that way more people want the education at the price offered is demonstable proof of the product’s market viability.
What other proof would you require? Wingnutz proof from Donald Luskin, the world’s stupidist man?
Goldy – I disagree. A quality state education is something precious, that we need to keep affordable. Right now, the UW costs 20K a year. that is not chump change – it is actually cheaper to go to some private 4 year schools than to UW and the students end up in less debt. We have seriously underfunded all education including higher ed. We should be enhancing quality and keeping tutiton reasonable – in the long run that will bring the most benefit toour state. We should also enhance the funding in theother state schools and in the community colleges to accomodate the influx of new students.
“Plant” is pretty significant part of the cost of running a college. We tend to look at building out colleges as demand goes up when we could be renting space or scheduling classes in off peak times. Your local high school tends to be flat broke and full of empty classrooms on nights and weekends, why not rent the space from them?
Just a thought anyway.
“Those families who could afford to pay the full price of educating their children would do so.”
The problem with this is these families pay taxes like everyone else to support the state’s colleges. It’s like taxing someone to build a park-and-ride lot and then charging them full-market-rate to park there. It won’t sit well with folks who feel they’re already contributing to the cost of our public colleges.
Perhaps your suggestion is the most practical solution to higher education funding under our terminally ill state tax system. But it’s a chewing-gum-and-bailing-wire “solution” nevertheless. The real problem is our terminally ill state tax system, and we ought to focus on fixing that.
We simply can’t fund education, build mass transit systems, or satisfy our other societal needs by boosting sales taxes into double-digit territory. The sales tax is regressive, it’s narrowly focused, and the truly affluent are able to largely escape paying it through various devices and strategems. Meanwhile, it socks lower income families, senior citizens of modest means, and local retailers (by driving business to the internet or across the Columbia River).
The reality of college finance today is that the overwhelming majority of new college graduates leave school with crushing debts. The “sliding scale” approach may sound great on paper but these schemes have a way of bypassing middle-class students who aren’t poor but can’t afford today’s soaring tuition rates, either. They don’t get much, if any, benefit from financial aid schemes and simply end up deeper in debt.
We have a formula for college funding that works. The only thing wrong with it is that we have abandoned it. Instead of supporting higher education with broad public subsidies — in recognition that an educated populace benefits everyone and makes our economy richer, thereby lifting all boats — as we did in the past, we’ve increasingly expected public colleges to be self-supporting through user fees imposed on students and their families. That makes public higher education is becoming indistinguishable from private higher education in terms of the financial impacts on students and their families — and unaffordable.
Make no mistake about it, raising tuition rates will mean destroying the college dreams of some students. It will result in more young people making a decision to not attend college. It will mean more financial stress on a large number of those who do attend, distracting their attention from their studies.
Instead of putting college farther out of reach of middle class students who are too “rich” to qualify for grants or tuition reductions but too poor to afford the higher tuitions you propose, why don’t we invest our energies in going back to the traditional system that worked so well for so long — a state-supported system that keeps tuition levels low enough to be affordable for the vast majority of students, with financial assistance available for the truly poor. And yes, I’m talking about increasing state support for our public learning institutions — and, of course, the comprehensive state tax reform on which such support depends.
It’s because we’ve let our tax system deteriorate so badly that state support for education has deteriorated so badly. In the long run, we can’t solve the latter without fixing the former, no matter what else you do. Everything else is merely stopgap, bandaid, remedies that only put makeup on top of a bleeding wound.
Or ….
Harvard, Princeton, the Cleland Clinic Med school … no longer charge tuition for most students.
Odd idea … PRIVATE schools for free?
Does not make sense. Esp. when you couple it with legislative attempts to dilute the quality of the education you want us to pay more for.
You also confuse kids with their parents. You, like I, believe in an inheritance tax. Kids should be reponsible for their own education. Parents are free to subsidize them in many other ways.
There is a much better , albeit less egalitarian idea.
1.Make higher ed in the US as competitive as it is in the rest of the (socialized) world. We are the onlu country that taxes students to go to college AND the only country where admission to high level schools is relatively easy.
I suspect UW could be a lot smaller, better school at no loss to the kids of this state.
2. Close the faux campuses .. Bothel and Tacoma DID NOT FILL! Why? Because their degrees are Potemkin degrees, based on a facade that these minicampuses are universities. Those dollars should have gone into improving access to state colleges.
3. Expand and reward our successful state colleges. ALL of our state colleges are highly ranked. Why do we send kids who can do very well at Evergreen to the UW??? To play football??
4. Merge the community college and high school systems to encourage more students to be trained in trades.
5. State taxes should go toward creating stable funding for the higher schools. This should include investment in endowments that can support tutiionjust as we support retirement programs.
I’m probably going to get body-slammed for this one, but why not look into variable pricing for classes? The more square-footage a course needs the more expensive it is to teach. Fine arts are pretty spendy to teach. We also have high demand and low demand areas for graduates. So, why not charge the kid that’s studying in a high demand, low-cost field less than someone studying a high-cost, low demand field?
Again, just throwing out an idea.
We also need to pay more attention to the increasingly predatory behavior of colleges — including public colleges. They have become co-conspirators with for-profit industries in the fleecing of students and their families. Colleges hawk everything from loan-shark credit cards to high-profit-margin health insurance policies to their captive student audiences.
The latter, in particular, is a scandal that is beginning to hit the MSM. Many parents and students are lured into buying health insurance policies that are costly, provide little coverage, and leave policyholders exposed to financial catastrophe. I am seeing stories in the media about parents who bought such policies for their students, then the student became ill, and the families discovered this insurance paid only 10% of a $250,000 hospital bill, leaving the family with $225,000 of unexpected medical debts. They bought the policy because the college sponsored or endorsed it, so it had to be good, right? And why did the college sponsor or endorse it? Because they got a lucrative fee from the insurance company for promoting it. Same with the high-interest-rate credit cards bearing official college logos pushed on college students because they’re a cash cow for the colleges — not because they’re in the students’ best interests. There are serious conflicts of interest in how the modern college industry is financially exploiting the student population; and, apart from tuition issues, this breakdown of ethics in how college administrations treat their students ought to be a serious concern and needs far more scrutiny and action than it has received so far.
This exploitation is, of course, a result of cash-starved public colleges grasping for any revenue stream they can get. Many private schools are richer than ever before, but even those with multi-billion-dollar endowments are gouging their students to an unprecedented degree. The people who run the academic universe are as human, and as capable of greed, as the rest of humanity — they’re simply greedy for different things (e.g., shiny new buildings instead of CEO stock options). And they’re running amok.
From the perspective of students and their families, all is not well in academe — in fact, there are many ills. We, as a society, need to address these problems. We should not abandon the college student population to the predatory “free market.” They are, after all, our future; and if we allow market forces to destroy their future before they can enter society and begin contributing, then our society itself will not have much of a future.
@1 Typical cheap labor wingnut.
@1 (continued) “no proof their product is viable”
I have an idea. Let’s put you in a car and have you drive across a bridge over a deep gorge designed by a self-taught engineer because we don’t have any formally-educated engineers. You know, just for funsies … just to see what happens when you put some weight on the bridge …
Or here’s another idea. How about if you have your appendix taken out by a guy who learned how to do surgery by reading about it on Wikipedia …
SJ:
Stupid ideas – sorry. As more kids are going to college than evere before we should:
make the UW smaller (the only really high quality campus???)
eliminate branch campuses – (so students can travel more????)
All of our colleges are NOT highly ranked – what dope are you smoking? the UW is the most selective and it still admits 65% of applicants.
Merging community colleges and high schools is the dumbest proposal I have ever seen – most HS students are not ready for community college and the one’s that are can use running start.
Talk about professors who never deal with undergrads – how OUT of touch can you be?
Um, guys, some of you are missing Goldy’s point. A high-tuition/high financial aid model makes college MORE affordable for the poor and middle classes, not LESS affordable.
In other words: why are you and I subsidizing college for the Gates, Ballmer and Bezos kids (should they choose to attend the UW) by keeping the UW’s tuition low?
@14: guess you have not checked the real tuition numbers lately – the middle class is getting screwed. Since the UW is somewhat cheaper if you make 40-80K you will get no financial aid and have to pay 20K a year. Private schools are offering aid for middle class parent – many are offering NO LOANS. 80K of debt is a hell of a way to start out life. Wake up and look at the freekin’ numbers! I have kids that are college age – Goldy does not.
@14 I believe the uniform experience with that approach has been that the higher tuition gets implemented and the higher financial aid doesn’t.
Too often, “financial aid” consists of nothing more than an opportunity to borrow. In my book, if it isn’t a grant or scholarship, it isn’t financial aid. Anything the student has to pay back with interest isn’t financial aid, it’s merely debt; and more debt is the last thing that young people starting out in life need.
Another problem with need-based financial aid schemes is they’re based on the parents’ means, not the student’s means. This is of no help to students whose parents make too much money for the student to qualify for financial aid, but whose parents can’t for some reason, or simply won’t, put their children through college. For example, I never qualified for financial aid even though I was genuinely poor because my parents made too much money; the student aid formulas were blind to the fact they also had too many children, and for my parents, feeding the mouths still at home was a higher priority than putting me through college. I got no financial help from my family whatsoever, zero, none, and I had absolutely nothing to my name, yet I was considered too “rich” to get tuition grants, Pell grants, or other financial aid because of my father’s income, even though I got no support from home and didn’t have a fucking thing I could call my own. So, I went into debt, and spent two decades paying off my student debt, which impaired my financial prospects in life for the rest of my adult life.
And that was under a system that provided far more public subsidy for the costs of running public colleges than today’s students benefit from.
Like I said, the problem with financial aid schemes is that they always look better on paper than they work in real life. If you take with one hand by raising tuition, then (pretend to) give back with the other hand by increasing financial aid, what happens to the student is he becomes a victim of some stranger’s judgmental belief that his family “should” provide more support than it is willing to or capable of, and the student who doesn’t get that family support and is, in reality, very poor is turned away at the door because he’s been priced out of college and frozen out of financial aid.
I somehow made it through college anyway; law school was possible for me only because of the G.I. Bill, although I had to incur additional debt. But in part because of my own experience, I’m extremely mistrustful of the sorts of schemes proposed by Goldy.
Private schools are offering aid for middle class parent – many are offering NO LOANS.
How many middle class kids are getting into Harvard or Yale without 1600 SATs and 4.3 GPAs? Remember, they still have Bush “legacies” to admit…
I believe the uniform experience with that approach has been that the higher tuition gets implemented and the higher financial aid doesn’t.
But Goldy’s not arguing that. He’s arguing for implementation of both.
I suppose you could argue for a European-style system, where if you meet academic qualifications, school’s free for everyone, but a system that subsidizes tuition for the rich at the expense of the poor and middle classes (which is what we have today in Washington state, and is what a low-tuition/low-financial aid system of financing boils down to) is incredibly dumb.
13. correctnotright spews:
“Stupid ideas – sorry. As more kids are going to college than evere before we should:
make the UW smaller (the only really high quality campus???)”
First of all this is not at all true. WSU, Bellingham, and Evergreen all OUTRANK the UW in many areas.
“eliminate branch campuses – (so students can travel more????)”
No, but wasting money on a pretend UW degree at these cmapuses is stupid. If we dumb down the UW degree to that level we defeat the whole purpose. These campsues exist only as pork. The new Everett campus SHOULD be a Technium but the local polls want another potemkin village.
‘
“All of our colleges are NOT highly ranked – what dope are you smoking? the UW is the most selective and it still admits 65% of applicants.”
Bull shit. Look at USNWR, inter alia. The branches by the way can not feill so they admit 100% of the applicants.
Merging community colleges and high schools is the dumbest proposal I have ever seen – most HS students are not ready for community college and the one’s that are can use running start.
I suppose you have heard other dumb ideas. BUT, consider the utilization of physical plant, availability of classes in trades as well academics for kids advanced in either way.
Talk about professors who never deal with undergrads – how OUT of touch can you be?
I do deal with undergrads and as for being out of touch I suspect you are as iggorant as the rock I dig up this AM.
Unfortunately the high cost as well as the lack of slots for students is wide spread in the USA. The original UW (Wisconsin) reported that during one enrollment period they had only room for 20% of the eligiable. I understand that UW may have like figures. WHERE ARE THE MISSING 80% GOING? I have not heard or read anything accounting for these lost students. Where are they being exported to? Regarding the ? of viable product, consider this. If a society can not generate (educate) a diverse and talented labor pool, that society will not be able to meet and solve it social, cultureal and economic problems. That society will die.
@15
Why dio you equate “rich” with “able?”
Based on my experience, meritocratic European schools systems are much better levelers than the US system.
Dragging all kids down so that we can issue more paper diplomas is infair to all kids. Moreover, as Roger has sais, the means based loan system we have developed is hugely regressive since rich kids get to go effectively free while middle class kids end up with burdensome loans.
How about the Obama proposal ..comobine merit and service. If you want to go to the UW you need to prove it by merit or by public service (e.g. in the military)?
Yup.
Obama is talking about a big-old tax credit for college students. It wont fix the problems, but it will help and it’s something that can be done quickly.
We gots-ta look at what can be done fast and cheap , even if it’s not the best or final solution.
@21 How does a tax credit help a poor student who doesn’t owe taxes because he doesn’t have any income because his school is located in a college town where there are 100 applicants for every minimum wage job?
The University of Washington happens to be located in a big city. But that’s unusual. Colleges more typically are located in “college towns.” Where students comprise 50% of the local population, the notion that a poor student can work his way through school is pure fantasy. Been there, tried that; doesn’t work. When you have 40 students applying for 1 work-study job in the dorm cafeteria, the other 39 either borrow more money or drop out.
Wabbit:
@7: Agree. We cannot impliment progressive legislation and\or policies on the back of a regressive tax system. It is this which has empowered the Eyemans of the world.
@10: Take the $200/copy “textbook” industry for example. Talk about predatory!
There is no substitute for affordable tuition.
You expect to pay nonresident tuition to attend college in another state; but it’s a sad state of affairs when you can’t afford the public colleges in your own state.
@22
It doesn’t help the poorest of the poor, but it does help middle class parents who are claiming their 19 yo kid on their taxes or someone like me who’s lower middle-class 39yo and has a uncompleted degree sitting out there.
And like I said before, it’s not a perfect or final solution to the problem.
True, that.
Ireland and Germany have had good results with that plan.
@21 Michael
BHO is also poprosing national service with a GI bill payback.
@23 PTBAAss
Textbooks ..
These are a ral problme BUT the problem is solveable once we use the Inet to do away with idiotic copyrights.
@28: Economist Dean Baker advocates much the same re patents. I urge you get acquainted with his work. It’s very good, IMHO.
For what it’s worth.
Just to be clear,
I see no conflict between a meritocracy and class equality.
The only issue is how to take into account the disadvantages arising from class.
The chinese have dealt with this for over 2000 years using the system that Confuscious described and it seems ot me that modern Europe and the US have done pretty well too.
The critical issues is a mixture of exams with programs that aim to wipe out disparities arising from class. The other critical issue is avoiding democratizing higher ed to serve the masses,
So, if the state were to rationalize its higher ed system (under my benign leadership) the first step would be to assure that we have the needed mix of schools. At top this MUST include a prestogous research school. Why? Because that school conducts research needed to make our whole economy run and instructional leadership that heps every one else. There are ways that a UW can support lower level school using the Inet and we need to imoliment those.
I suspect that the part of the WA state population needing the UW/Stanford/Berkely/Harvard level of ed is a lot less than we now serve.
Behind this, we ned to have a good, strong set of second rank universities and colleges to meet geographic and some specialized needs. An AG school is obvious need .. and WAZU is ****. BUT we could also use one or more technology and business oriented schools. Closing the Potemkin campuses would enable us to have a polytech in Everett and, perhaps a business oriented campus for Tacoma. Bothell makes no sense for a University but Seattle could definitely use a state college of its own!
Fianlly, the part of our saystem that REALLY owrks is the community college. Why not expand that effort by pushing the options of CC as BA granting degrees perhaps through affiliate programs with the State colleges.
29 PTBAAss
I have not read it but I have read others on the same thing.
The sad truth is that the copyright system now stifles creativity.
When I signed up for G.I. bill assistence in the early 70’s, I was told that the government never lost any money through the program. Get a better job, make more money, pay more taxes on that increased paycheck. Worked for me.
Suppose higher education may go the way of other work paid for by people who look always at the immediate, short term bottom line. So in the future your kid maybe able to get a cheaper college degree by going to India or China. Finding a descent job afterward will then be easier, because you’ll also be closer to those jobs.
@27 Public service in exchange for educational benefits is a great idea! It combines work experience with education funding. One potential beneficiary: Our severely underfunded and sadly neglected national parks and forests.
@30 We don’t have a meritocracy in this country. The most common way of getting rich in America is by being born into a wealthy family. Sure, it’s still possible to make big money by coming up with a breakthrough invention or running a business sucessfully. But nowadays, it’s far more common for so-called “successful” business people to produce big profits by deceiving and cheating customers — and dumping business risks and liabilities on taxpayers. Our culture of earning money has declined to a culture of taking money.
32 The “let’s run government like a business” horseshit we’ve been sold by the right has no accommodation for putting money into educating someone over a few years and then reaping the benefit of that person’s contributions over a lifetime. Just as businesses no longer look beyond making pretty numbers in the next shareholders’ report, government policy has become hopelessly myopic about not bothering to put resources into anything that doesn’t give some bloc of lobbyists or voters a woody before the next election cycle.
30 The idea of a polytech college in Everett seems to make sense. On the other hand, the private side tried that when they moved Cogswell up there, and it failed.
@33 ,,, another beneficiary may be education itself.
Teaching shold be a lot more wage -progressive. BUT .. to do that we need to decrease the costs of a lot of the caretaking part of school. Also, student-teachers can be earning money that can pay for advanaced degrees.
@34 ,,, the meriticracy does survive…
Ya want evidence:
Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton
Is the meritcracy as robust as it SHOULD be .. shit no. That si why an estate tax is a very good idea.
Hell, howsa about this:
Devote the entire estate tax to education!!! Maybe even allow tax payers to re-pay the tax int he form of a living trust!
@18: SJ – Sorry to bust your sorry bubble but I got my PhD. from the UW – so you want to call me ignorant…go for it – you are just dissin’ your own school.
Your ideas are self-centered and foolish. UW is the only nationally ranked Univeristy in the state at any high level.
WSU is not ranked well and not very selective, Western is better for a regional school but theother CWU and Eastern are bottom tier.
Look it up. You are out of touch and UW-centric. UW gives very little need based aid as grants. Private schools are actually cheaper for many middle class students than UW.
I know for a FACT – you hardly teach ANY undergrads….so don’t go bragging about your one part of one class. How many whole undergrad classes do you teach? NONE.
So you don’t really know – but you like to make grand pronouncements…in fact, your ideas are preety much the exact opposite of what the HEC board has recommended.
By the way – Tacoma is pretty full and Bothell can’t fill out to the proposed amounts because of space limitation and lack of access – so much for your backward arguments.
@36 I do not know much about Cogswell but a polytech would be a real plus anywhere in the state. Hell, we could name it after BillyG and have a compsci program from the Gates of Prayer.
Ideally, a polytech would be partnered with WA state industries the way WAZU is with agriculture. Internships at Amazon and MS would be huge attractions. The school could also have a development center that was jointly funded. The UW has ne now but it needs a lot more support to work.
Fianlly, WAPU might functiona as a regional polytech .. serving Alaska, Montana, Idaho as well. That would bring in expertise in oil industries, mining, and more. We could call it the Northwest Regional Polytechnical University.
They would, foc ourse need a football team … why not call mthem the Everett Supersonics?
39 cnotright
First, YOU called me names first. I do not normally play that game but am happy to desist.
Second, yes I am involved with undergrads and have been for many years, Whatever you think you know is BS. BTW .. there are ways of teaching that do not mean offering an undergrad class. For many years I have worked onbe on one with undergrads, many of whom have gone on to be very successful.
Third, if you wanna diss WSU, Evergreen, etc then come up with some references. Otherwise I will assume you have no idea what you are tlaking about.
Fourth, the SAT scores at the two branches are 100 to 200 points lower than at the UW. The class offerings are very thin at both campuses, calling either one a university begs the question of what a university is. Tell me how one takes the following courses in Tacome:
biochemistry, genetics, french literature, music theory, history of china, introduction to forestry .. you know normal university stuff!
Fifth exactly why am I supposed to think the HEC board is a font of wisdom??? The board is a political device that serves to balance the issues of the parts of our higher ed system. I suspect very different decisions would be made if we had an independent board of regents.
Finally, on what basis do YOU charge ME with being UW centric? My ideas are quite the opposite. I think UW should be a much smaller school and I think the UW should provide educational services via distant learning and machine learning to the entire state. I think we should encourage the growth of the regional schools so that most undergrads can get their needs filled at a local school. Oh yeh, I think we should outsource the football team, maybe locate it in Bothell?
S
SJ:
First: Supervising a few undergrads in research does NOT make you an expert on undergrad education. You did not answer my question about how many undergrad classes you teach – because the answer is NONE.
Second: Making the UW smaller without increasing the other schools is limiting choice for Washington state students- the UW rejected more qualified students this year than ever before – it is elitist to try and make the highest qualtiy school smaller ….for what? The other schools simply don’t have the draw of UW – and that includes WSU (different setting, different academics).
Third: Do you need the links to the rankings? or should I just buy you a copy of the USNWR magazine:
Here is the link:
http://colleges.usnews.ranking....._brief.php
For Masters level Universities Western is ranked the highest regionally (not nationally, regionally below Seattle U., PLU and SPU. There is NO other highly ranked public school in Western washington. And Western is a pretty good school – EWU and CWU lag far behind.
EWU and CWU are tied for 43rd.
Our state is growing and our students need more quality options for public schools – not less.
“University of Washington rejects a record number of applicants”
Legal US students first then Foreign applications
@42
1. So tell me why you think an undergraduate instructor is more (or less ) qualified to have opinions on how best to train students than an graduate school prof??? Do you think we get grad students from Costco? I guess by your reasoning an HR person at Boeing would be REALLY unqualified.
2. Hmmm .. I always admire folks who can run BOTH sides of an argument. Did I ever say that we should NOT expand the regional colleges??? Maybe you said it?
3. I see your criteria are USNWR. Arte you impressed with theoir criteria?
I can tell you form an admission POV, that a lot of theor ratings do not make sense. As for ranking Western BELOW SPU … maybe God had a role in THAT ranking because I do not think many others would come to that decision.
Exactly why are you comparing these schools as Masters level schools? I though we were talking about undergrad.
Anyhow, if you believe that our regionals are not great, I will support any effort to improve support for them.
4, Exactly how do the seats at Bothel INCREASE access to the UW? By your illogic, we could just have diploma mills all over the state and print diplomas.
5. Howdja manage to leave out Evergreen? I can tell you from a grad school perspecitve, that place has a very good reputation.
As for your judgement abut WAZU, gimme a brake. Are you aware that in some fields WAZU is the only campus offering coursework?
Look, you seem to be seriously interested in the kids getting an education. So am I and so are m ost of my UW colleagues. The folks behind the branch cmapuses are NOT the faculty. The folks behind this are admins whose major arguments are political, not didactic.
So how about this …
YO&U tell me how yo would met the sates’ needs? If you want to expand the UW, tell me where oyu would spend the money? From my POV, this is what I would do:
1. reconfigure Bothell as Cascadia State College (this may happen anyway) and work wiht the UW to be sure that the offerings meet student needs.
2, Close Tacoma, fuse the campus with Evergreen.
This wuld add to Evergreens resources and, becaus eof the unique model used at Evergreen, a second campus shuld be very popular.
3. New Polytech in Everett. Use a work study model to enhance experience and lower costs .. like Northeastern.
4. Re-examine UW/WAZU offerings by three criteria:
a. what is needed to maintain a high level prestigous campus. Much of this is independent of student number.
b. invest in distant education so UW/WSU resources can help regional camuses. This might also benefit both research schools by fostering professional rivalry.
c. where majors or programs do not have a unique requirement for a a research campus, expand offeringa at regional schools. Examples might include athletics, pre-business, pre-med, education,
d. using distance learning methods make it possible for WA students to take some courses at the UW w/o travel.
@43 foreign aplications are legal and no decent University cna operate w.o the cultural diversity of foreign students.
Sure a 7% increase in tuition in a .06% economy, now that really makes a F’n lot of sense.
But having said that go ahead! Raise em 200% each year if you like!
Why?
Because of the GET program, sold specifically by this state as insurance against these massive unrealistic increases.
All paid for!
I thought that was a great bet years ago when I purchased it. And it turned out to be a gold mine!
And I thank you, having two kids in college and ample GET credits for their education already purchased…..Go right ahead and raise tuition all you want!
:)
It’s rare you get to sit back and just smile from ear to ear about your investments!
@38 We’re already devoting the entire lottery revenue to education. Supposed to be, anyway. But you can’t devote everything to education. At some point, you have to devote some of the revenue to the other necessary functions of government, or those functions won’t exist.
That’s the trouble with education people — they think they’re the only ones who exist; and if it were up to them, the other 100,000 state employees wouldn’t be paid at all. During the years I worked for the state, I got awfully tired of the system under which the legislature took COLA money away from state workers as punishment for not striking and gave it to teachers to reward them for striking.
@47 “It’s rare you get to sit back and just smile from ear to ear about your investments!”
Not if you know what you’re doing. I made $375 in the stock market today bwithout getting out of bed, and have made $13,500 since April 1 without lifting a finger. No job, no commute, no boss, just pure unadulterated capitalism — and a 67% discount on my taxes!!!
@47 Roger
Of course I agree with you that $$ have to be rationed. The rationale for using tyhe death tax for education is that the accrual of wealth by the state reflects its investment in education. Moreover, sonce this tax mostly effects the very rich, it is rightfully progressive and fixed on those who benefit the most form education.
Actually, on this issue I am very much a Goldyite, Goldsteinist, Godshevik, Gold Fish???
TH ebiggest failing of the states leaders is their inability to educate the poele in why we need tax reform.
48, Don’t be afraid to go ahead and send in 67% extra Roger, all the little wabbits needing free healthcare and free education will thank you!
Oh by the way with UW turning away record numbers of students, how does Gregoire’s FreeBee $50,000 if you have no felonies and a 2.0 gpa gonna catch wind?
Sounded nice, but a 2.0 isn’t going to get you into a 4 yr college in this state. They’d get more bang for the buck on the felony fast track!
Goldy–
How aout cutting costs first DUMBASS!!!
The most bloated bureaucracies are the “hangeroners” sucking on the nipple of free tax money under the cover of education.
The cost increases are obscene.
Goldy–
Have you ever not looked at taxing the rich more first???
What a KLOWN!
And privitize Evergreen.
It is not in anyway moderate enough to represent mainstream views.
They create anarchists…and angry hippies!
@52
Maybe back in the 70’s, but nowadays Evergreen is mostly populated with transfer students from South Sound Community College, Tacoma Community College and Green River Community College.
A couple of years back Eastern’s student body president was involved in a drive by shooting- I’ll take my chances with the anarchists!
UW recently put in more funding for needy students. It doesn’t seem to have had any effect on increasing enrollment, as the number of students rejected this year was a record and enrollment saw only a slight increase.
I would like to know what Goldy defines as market rate tuition. A suggestion is not useful without definition of its terms.
Actually, the rejection numbers are deceptive unless you also know the numbers of schools kids apply to. I understand that number is way up. So, the actual rejection rate may not have changed.