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Thanks for your patience! 听We’ve completed our听reorganization of听the OPB website.
We hope that the new website structure听is听more听user-friendly and intuitive. 听However, if you have questions or if you notice that any bookmarks or hyperlinks no longer work, please let me (Becka Johnson Poppe) know.
Please note, due to space restrictions, we did not end up creating a separate “Compensation” tab. 听Instead, a “Compensation” drop-down menu item is available听under the “ 91探花Budget” tab.
From Wednesday, May 6, through Friday, May 8, the OPB website will be undergoing reorganization.听Changes will include:
The 鈥淭uition & Fees鈥� and 鈥� 91探花Data鈥� tabs will remain relatively unchanged for the time being.
After the reorganization is complete, we will post a sitemap to the OPB听home page and we will post a notice to OPBlog. 听If you have saved bookmarks or hyperlinks that no longer work after May 8, please听contact Becka Johnson Poppe.
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础听 by Demos, a New York public policy think tank, attempts to identify the reasons why tuition prices at public four-year institutions have increased over the last decade. The findings reinforce the understanding that declining state support, rather than 鈥渁dministrative bloat,鈥� is the primary cause of tuition increases. Although administrative spending did increase marginally, the authors attribute the slight change to rising health care costs[1] 听and to new support services required over the past decade 鈥� such as those to support growing technology needs.
The report analyzed data from the and examined research institutions separately from institutions that primarily award bachelor鈥檚 and master’s degrees.
Between 2001 and 2011, state funding per student fell by $3,081听at research universities and, simultaneously, tuition per student increased 鈥渋n near lockstep,鈥� by $3,628. Consequently, the majority of funding formerly provided by the state is now borne by students and their families.
(taken from Figure 6 in the report)
As seen in the figure above, of the tuition hikes at public research universities:
With regards to 鈥渁dministrative bloat鈥� 鈥� which some still view as a key driver of tuition increases 鈥� the report finds that 鈥�the number of executives and administrators has actually slightly decreased relative to the size of the student body鈥� and the average number of total employees per 1,000 students has remained relatively constant over the last decade.
Instead, public institutions are employing more part-time faculty and professional staff (e.g. employees who work in admissions, human resources, information technology, etc.).听鈥淎ll of these things are necessary to support the growing university,鈥� , the report鈥檚 author.听 Hiltonsmith also noted that when state funding for higher education declines, colleges can either raise tuition to make up for the forgone听revenue or look for ways to trim听expenses.听 鈥淚f there isn’t a lot of fat to cut, then听their only option is to raise tuition or lose quality of education.鈥�
[1] On average, the amount spent by public universities to provide health insurance to staff and faculty rose by nearly $2,700 per employee between 2001 and 2011, a 40 percent increase.
The 91探花 commonly reports undergraduate time to degree, which measures the amount of time that elapses between a student鈥檚 first quarter enrolled at the 91探花and the quarter when she or he earns a 91探花bachelor鈥檚 degree. Undergraduate time to degree at the campus level is available through . A new provides a more detailed look at time to degree at the level of student major. This brief allows a comparison of how long students take to graduate, their average degree GPA, and the average number of credits they take, broken out by major, student origin (first-time freshman or transfer student), and number of majors.
announced its annual release of for FY14, which provides a comprehensive review of state and local funding, tuition revenue, and enrollment trends for public higher education.
National trends and Current status of state funding for higher education
On average, state and local support per full time equivalent (FTE) student was $6,552, a slight increase from $6,215 in 2013. Net tuition collections per FTE student is at $5,777, a 2.7 percent increase from 2013. Two rather interesting findings were highlighted in the report:
Washington State compared to U.S Average
As a reminder, the SHEEO SHEF report combines community and technical college and college/university enrollment, state appropriations and tuition revenue for purposes of this report. In it, they found that enrollment (FTE) increased by 3.5 percent from 2009 to 2014, which is close to U.S. average (3.9 percent). They also found that public higher education in Washington improved in a number of other dimensions; including:
However, two years of per-student funding increases might have meant that national average was on the path to exceeding pre-recession funding levels, which was not the case. Educational appropriations per student in FY14 remained 18.9 percent below 2008 pre-recession levels.
Read the full report for more data, analysis and methodological details.
The Senate capital budget appropriates $102 million in new funding from the State Building Construction Account, which is significantly more than the House capital budget appropriation of $41 million.
Here are some of the major funding items from the Senate capital budget:
The Senate voted its operating budget, Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill off the floor, adopting only five floor amendments, making virtually no changes to the higher education budget presented in our prior budget brief, available . However, one of these five adopted amendments would redirect state marijuana-related revenues to the general fund, in lieu of allocating those funds to the state鈥檚 research universities (per citizen鈥檚 Initiative 502).
We will keep you updated as the House and Senate continue to work toward a final conference budget.
On Thursday, the House passed its operating budget proposal () off the floor, with several amendments.
The original tuition and compensation proposals from the remain unaltered, however there some key changes compared to the original bill:
Please see our for more information about the original House proposal.
The Senate is expected to vote on its on Monday.
On Tuesday, Leadership in the Senate Ways & Means Committee released its operating budget proposal, which makes significant changes to the and differs significantly from听the.听 Under the Senate proposal, the 91探花would receive $674.39 million of Near General Fund State across the biennium.
Here are some of the key points from the Senate Budget proposal:
The Senate capital budget is expected to be released next week听.听 For more information, please see the .
Leadership in the House Appropriations Committee released their 2015-17 operating budget proposal on Friday – . The proposal provides $3.48 billion of Near General Fund听State听for higher education which is a slight increase over the total higher education appropriations in the Governor’s budget.
On the operating side, the 91探花would receive $595.6 million of Near General Fund State across the biennium 鈥� $95 million more than we听received in 2013-15.
Here are some of the key points from the House听operating budget proposal:
Overall, the 91探花fared well in the House operating budget compared to the Governor budget.
On the capital side, the 91探花would receive $41.156 million in new funding from the State Building Construction Account. This is significantly less than the Governor鈥檚 proposed budget of $86.2 million, with less funding for the CSE Expansion ($6.033 million of the $40 million requested) and no funding to support the completion of the phased renovation of Lewis Hall. It does however propose a greater amount of funding for the Burke Museum ($26 million), but is still less than the Burke鈥檚 requested $46 million.
The Senate will release its proposed operating and capital budgets in the coming weeks.听 For an analysis and summary of the operating and capital budgets, please review the听.
General Fund-State (GF-S) has been increased by $107 million for the 2013-2015 biennium and by $129 million for 2015-2017.
Revenue collections through February 10th were $69 M (1.5%) higher than forecasted. Of this amount, $52 M came from Revenue Act Sources (retail sales, business and occupation, public utility and tobacco products taxes).
A few additional highlights from the update:
Note: Caseload forecast Council will release their report this afternoon at 1.30PM