Higher Education Committees Complete Policy Work

Posted on March 31, 2015 by jgarver

Today marked the last meetings of the higher education policy committees. Tomorrow, April 1 marks the deadline for policy bills to move to either a fiscal committee or the floor of the opposite chamber.

The Senate Higher Education committee finished its work last week. The House Higher Education completed its work this morning.

The committee advanced five bills including legislation to study cost drivers at public higher education institutions (SB 5133), align state residency requirements with federal requirements (SB 5355), establish a certified public accounting scholarship program (SB 5534), create a task force on sexual violence prevention (SB 5719), and add Everett Community College to the list of approved aerospace training/educational programs (SB 5746).

Policy bills advanced to a fiscal committee must move out of those committees by end of day on April 7.

House Higher Education Committee Hears Tuition Reduction Legislation

Posted on March 26, 2015 by jgarver

This morning the House Higher Education Committee took up two bills that would reduce tuition at Washington’s public universities and colleges.

Senate Bill 5954 creates the College Affordability Program (CAP), removing tuition-setting authority for resident undergraduate students for the public baccalaureate institutions.

Beginning in the 2015-16 academic year, tuition fees for resident undergraduates, under SB 5954, would be no more than six percent of the state’s average wage for community and technical colleges, 10 percent for the regional universities and The Evergreen State College, and 14 percent for the research universities.

Beginning with the 2015-17 operating budget, the Legislature would appropriate to the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges and each four-year institution of higher education an amount that is at least equal to the total state funds appropriated in the 2013-15 biennium plus the reduction in revenues from resident undergraduate tuition operating fees received for the 2015-17 fiscal biennium adjusted for inflation.

In addition the committee took testimony on HB 2201. HB 2201 would repeal tax deductions for the interest on investments for loans secured by mortgages, deeds or trusts. The revenue generated would be used to offset a reduction in tuition for institutions of higher education and any savings to the State Need Grant would be reinvested into the grant program to serve more students. The repeal would be sent to voters in a referendum for their approval.

The Council of Presidents, University of Washington and The Evergreen State College testified on both bills. Evergreen asked the committee to focus on the critical policy issue in front of Washington higher education, how to best provide sufficient, stable and predictable funding for the state’s colleges and universities. Whatever the path forward, it is critical that it must clearly and decisively link tuition policy and state investment for institutions and financial aid.

While the college appreciates that both bills continue to make an investment to provide affordable access in higher education and try to right the ship and begin to equalize the cost sharing involved in financing higher education between the state and students and their families, Evergreen expressed to major concerns.

First, there is the lack of a direct link between tuition policy and state investment in SB 5954 because it is a policy bill and not a budget. And while there is a link between state investment and tuition policy for HB 2201 the bill refers the decision to voters. If the measure were to fail the result would be a cut to higher education funding to simply meet current programs and services.

Second, both proposals only provide a path to address maintenance level funding for institutions. Neither proposal provides a pathway forward for the needed investments in higher education institutions and financial aid to take steps forward to ensure access to a quality, affordable postsecondary education.

Evergreen summarized by stating that the College values the focus on tuition policy, but this one part of the equation. The critical issue for higher education is how to provide adequate public reinvestment to accomplish the state’s goals for access, completion and post-graduate success.

The Week Ahead: Policy and Awaiting the Budget

Posted on March 23, 2015 by jgarver

This week the House and Senate will continue to advance policy legislation forward in the process. Both chambers have until a week from Wednesday to move bills from the opposite chamber to either the floor or a fiscal committee.

At the same time everyone is awaiting the release of the House operating and capital budgets. This year the House will introduce their proposed biennial budgets first followed by the Senate. Rumor suggests that a release may come early next week.

House Higher Education

The House Higher Education Committee will hold a series of public hearings this week. Among the bills the committee will take testimony include legislation with regard to sexual assault prevention on campuses (SB 5518 and 5719), adding the branch campuses to the Office of Financial Management’s Education Research and Data Center’s dashboard for public, baccalaureate institutions (SB 5295), and the type of financial aid information shared with prospective and admitted students to higher education institutions (SB 5328)

The Committee is expected to hold an executive session on bills heard to date on Thursday.

Senate Higher Education

The Senate Higher Education Committee will hold several public hearings early this week. Among the bills scheduled include legislation to establish a task force on mental health and suicide prevention in higher education (HB 1138) and the creation of a pilot project for performance-based grants within the State Need Grant (HB 2041).

Week in Review

Posted on February 7, 2015 by jgarver

This week committees transitioned from work sessions to public hearings, even advancing some bills to the next step in the legislative process.

The Senate Higher Education Committee spent the week listening to testimony on a range of bills and moving forward trustee appointments. The Committee held public hearings on bills focusing on tuition policy, student veterans, and sexual assault prevention. Evergreen weighed in supporting bills to align state policy impacting student veterans with federal policy, provide support for sexual assault prevention, and eliminate tuition-setting authority for public baccalaureate institutions.

The Senate Higher Education also took action and advanced Nick Wootan, Student Trustee for The Evergreen State College to the full Senate for confirmation.

The House Higher Education Committee also spent the week taking public testimony on a range of bills. Legislation before the committee focused on student veterans, transparency and accountability, performance funding and tuition policy. Evergreen echoed testimony the College provided in the Senate to support legislation that would align state policy with federal policy for student veterans and eliminate tuition-setting authority for public baccalaureate institutions.

Evergreen also testified on a variety of bills that focused on transparency and accountability. The College asked the committee to not duplicate current reporting efforts and to clarify responsibilities within the legislation. Among the bills was legislation to create a performance incentive funding policy for the comprehensive institutions and Evergreen.

Finally, Evergreen testified in support of the Governor’s biennial capital budget before the Senate Ways & Means Committee. Evergreen asked the Committee to support funding for Evergreen’s capital priorities and to provide funding to maintain and preserve existing facilities.

Next week both the House and Senate Higher Education Committees will continue to hold public hearings. Bills will focus on financial aid policy and higher education funding.

House Higher Education Committee Discusses Interim Work

Posted on March 5, 2014 by jgarver

The House Higher Education Committee met this morning for a work session focused on the Interim and next steps.

Members of the Committee shared their thoughts about the session and concepts and potential legislation they would bring forward in the next biennium. Among the issues and ideas expressed was support for further work on the concept of Pay It Forward, concern about the increasing cost of education highlighting student debt and increasing costs at the institutions, support for continuing the work on efficiencies with the four- and two-year institutions, implementation of a performance funding framework for the public baccalaureates, remedial education, and support for providing more room and flexibility for institutions to innovate.

The second half of the work session the Committee heard about the work of stakeholders in the Interim. The Washington Student Achievement Council (WASAC), Council of Presidents, Workforce Board, State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, Independent Colleges of Washington, Northwest Career College Federation, Council of Faculty Representatives, Washington Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, Washington Student Association and institutions all shared their thoughts.

Paul Francis, Executive Director, The Council of Presidents, thanked the committee for their passion for higher education and invited members to visit the public baccalaureate institutions. Francis highlighted the work of the Council in statewide conversations in the upcoming Interim including the participation on the WASAC Board and with advisory committees, partnering with the Legislature to further efficiency legislation, support for a deeper and comprehensive conversation focused on financial aid, and work with Washington Results.

As Policy Deadline Nears Committees Take Action on Legislation

Posted on February 25, 2014 by jgarver

This weeks marks another major deadline in the legislative process as the Legislature marches forward toward the end of session in mid-March. House policy committees must advance Senate bills forward in the process by the end of Wednesday, February 26; the deadline in the Senate for House bills is Friday.

House Higher Education Committee

This morning the House Higher Education Committee held a series of public hearings on Senate bills that passed the floor last week.

Among the bills considered this morning was legislation that would change business practices resulting in greater efficiency and effectiveness for Washington’s public baccalaureate institutions (SB 6362) and ensure that colleges and universities clearly disseminate their financial policies to students (SB 6358). The Committee also took executive action on bills heard in committee.

The Committee rounded out the meeting with a work session focused on higher education transitions. The Committee heard updates with regard to two programs that focus on easing the transition to higher education: (1) the College Bound Scholarship and (2) MESA Community College Program.

The Committee will meet next on Wednesday afternoon. This will be the last meeting prior to the policy cut-off for bills passed in the Senate to be considered in the House.

Senate Higher Education Committee

This afternoon the Senate Higher Education Committee continued its work to advance gubernatorial appointments to higher education related boards. The Committee heard from nominations who would serve on the boards of Spokane and Spokane Falls Community College, Shoreline Community College, and the Washington Student Achievement Council.

Following the conversation with future Trustees the Committee held a series of public hearings on house bills. The Committee heard proposed legislation that would create an informational program to increase applications from high-achieving low-income students to selective institutions of higher education (HB 2694) and clean up outdated statutes pertaining to general obligation bonds that were issued for higher education capital projects and that have matured and provides expiration dates and clarifications for certain higher education provisions and programs (HB 2546).

The Committee also held a public hearing on House Bill 2613 which changes to business practices resulting in greater efficiency and effectiveness for Washington’s public baccalaureate institutions.

The Committee closed with an executive session. The Committee advanced several pieces of legislation and moved multiple gubernatorial appointments forward. The legislation advanced included amended legislation to require higher education institutions to post department-level, budget unit-level, division-level, school-level, or college-level expenditure information on their respective web site within sixty days of the closing fiscal year (HB 2336) and an amended bill to direct OFM to create a website with accessible information on revenues and expenditures and require all branch campuses to display specific data on the office of financial management’s dashboard for four-year institutions of higher education by December 1, 2014 (HB 2651).

The Committee will meet next on Thursday afternoon. This is the last meeting of the Committee before the Friday cut-off.

House Higher Education Committee Launches into Work

Posted on February 19, 2014 by jgarver

Fresh off the floor, the House Higher Education Committee held a public hearing focused on legislation that would make changes to existing state financial aid programs.

One proposal – HB 2615 – would increase the GPA requirement to qualify for a State Need Grant and reduce the period of time a student would be eligible to receive a State Need Grant from five years to four years.

House Bill 2619 would change the current State Need Grant and College Bound programs from a need-based grant program to a “Pay It Forward” program. The bill would require students that receive grants toward tuition agree, through a grant contract, to make contributions to the program one year after completing their higher education program or one year after discontinuation of their higher education program based on their ability to pay contributions based on a percentage of income.

The Committee followed the public hearing with a work session focused on higher education capacity expansion for the state’s private career schools and regulating the private career schools in the State.

House Higher Education Takes Time to Learn More about Mental Health, Campus Safety and Student Debt

Posted on February 12, 2014 by jgarver

This morning the House Higher Education opened the day with a busy work session. The Committee heard from three panels with regard to three major, topical issues impacting the climate on higher education campuses – campus safety, student debt and mental health.

In a focused presentation before the Committee, Elizabeth McHugh, Director of Counseling and Health Services addressed national trends and strategies, with regard to mental health and student services on campus. Evergreen was joined by colleagues from Western Washington University and the community and technical colleges.

The Committee also heard from a panel of campus safety officers from Washington State University, Central Washington University, and Eastern Washington University with regard to campus safety trends and strategies on higher education campuses.

Finally the Committee heard from students from the University of Washington with regard to student-driven work on campus to analyze student debt at the University.

House Higher Education Committee Closes Week with Public Hearings

Posted on January 31, 2014 by jgarver

Bright and early this morning the House Higher Education Committee held public hearings on a range of bills that focus on funding for higher education, affordability and access.

The Committee kicked off the morning with a hearing on legislation that would adopt the goals put forward by the Washington Student Achievement Council (WASAC) (HB 2626) and heard legislation to implement a performance funding framework for Washington’s public baccalaureate institutions (HB 2653).

Among the bills taken up by the Committee this morning was legislation that would move Washington forward to implement a voluntary Pay-It-Forward model for students at five high schools selected by WASAC (HB 2720). Evergreen, Washington State University (WSU), and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) expressed concerns about the proposal with regard to the impact on student debt and access. Evergreen and WSU encouraged legislators to focus on fully funding the existing financial aid programs and investing in the institutions to offset increases in tuition. The Economic Opportunity Institute and a citizen testified in support.

The Committee closed the meeting with the passage of three bills. House Bill 2429 would create the Washington Advance Higher Education Loan Pilot Program, House Bill 2396 would require WASAC to conduct an analysis of Washington’s Running Start Program, and House Bill 2486 would eliminate the current statute that prohibits the Department of Corrections from paying for post-secondary education and would authorize the DOC to implement post-secondary education programs within existing funds.

House Higher Education Moves Bills to Next Step

Posted on January 30, 2014 by jgarver

This afternoon the House Higher Education Committee took action on a handful of bills. The Committee moved legislation, ranging from a review of institutional higher education policies related to dual credit coursework to authorizing an increase in the total outstanding indebtedness of the higher education facilities authority.

Following the executive session, the Committee held two public hearings. The Committee heard testimony from the public baccalaureates regarding the institution’s efficiency legislation. The bill (HB 2613) would make changes to business practices resulting in greater efficiency and effectiveness for Washington’s public baccalaureate institutions. Among the changes proposed is permissive authority to prorate paychecks for faculty on nine-month appointments, to change payroll frequency from semi-monthly to biweekly and changes to existing reporting requirements. Some concern was expressed by the Council of Presidents about additional language that was added to the bill, beyond the efficiencies identified by the institutions, that may actually increase the workload and require additional resources to implement.

The Committee also held a public hearing on legislation that would “clean-up” higher education related statutes by removing obsolete statutes and making technical corrections to existing statutes (HB 2546).

The Committee is scheduled for additional public hearings and executive sessions on Friday.

Office of Governmental Relations

Tag Archives: House Higher Education