Today the Washington Senate Ways & Means Committee took action on two higher education bills.

Senate Bill 5941 would reduce tuition by 3% for undergraduate resident students for the 2013-15 biennium at the public baccalaureate institutions and community and technical colleges. Beginning in 2015-16 through 2018-19 the public baccalaureates and the community and technical colleges could not raise resident, undergraduate tuition cannot exceed inflation.

The bill also allows for the following exception if SB 5942 passes. If the Legislature does not provide sufficient funding to meet baseline funding levels then the institutions can increase resident undergraduate tuition for the following academic year necessary to achieve the baseline funding levels.

Senate Bill 5942 would create a baseline level of funding beginning in 2014 that is equal to the maintenance level appropriations in the 2013-15 budget expressed as a per-resident student rate based on a three-year average of the number of actual FTE enrolled resident students. The per-resident student is also required to increase each fiscal year by the rate of inflation.

Also in 2014 any funds available after meeting the baseline levels or increases to higher education would be required to be distributed based on performance to institutions. The funds would be distributed on a proportional basis and for the public four-years based on a three-year average performance on five metrics.

1. Average time to degree for undergraduate students
2. Number of undergraduate high-demand degrees produced
3. Freshman retention
4. Low-income populations
5. Space utilization

Finally the bill would establish a work group to review the per-resident student rates utilized to establish baseline funding and make recommendations for achieving equal funding for similar institutions by the 2017-19 biennium.

Three amendments were offered to SB 5942, though none of the amendments were passed.

• Would strike the entire bill and replace it with language to direct the Office of Financial Management to convene a technical incentive funding model task force to design an incentive funding model to provide new incentive funding to four-year institutions of higher education that demonstrate improvement on existing performance measures and to control resident undergraduate tuition growth.
• Would make students who are enrolled or accepted for enrollment for at least three-quarter credits or the equivalent semester hours, in a qualifying higher education program, eligible for the State Need Grant program.
• Would require the State Auditor to conduct a comprehensive financial audit of UW and WSU.

Both bills were moved out of committee and to the Senate floor for further consideration.