This evening after a week of long days and nights on the floor and two legislative sessions the Washington Legislature sent to the Governor an operating budget that makes a substantial reinvestment in higher education.

Last session the Washington Legislature held the line on funding for higher education. This session the Legislature set a new path forward for higher education making a substantial reinvestment in access to an affordable quality education for students. The budget put forth by the Legislature reverses the trend of deep reductions all to familiar in higher education since the beginning of the Great Recession and makes a commitment to invest in higher education and to ease the financial burden for Washingtonians and their families.

The budget invests nearly $3 billion in Evergreen above a fully funded maintenance level budget. This represents an increase of 5.6% above 2011-13 levels and represents roughly half of the total request the Evergreen Board of Trustees put forth this past fall.

The reinvestment of state dollars will allow Evergreen to move forward in several critical areas including student success programming, basic technology and infrastructure needs, and staff and faculty recruitment and retention efforts.

Perhaps most critical in this budget is the commitment the Legislature makes to students by holding tuition at current levels for the next two years in the budget and making a substantial investment with state funds to preserve quality.