allowed universities to cover major cuts to the state operating allotment with increases to tuition, resulting in four consecutive years of 14-percent tuition increases. Then the legislature froze tuition for two years because tuition had increased “too quickly”. In 2015, the legislature rewrote tuition policy in order to reset the balance between state and tuition funding. The new policy reduced tuition 20 percent over the biennium, and provided a corresponding “backfill” of the lost tuition revenue. All future tuition increases were restricted to a rate no more than the 14-year average of wage inflation, about 2.2 percent. FY 2018 was the first resident undergraduate (RUG) tuition increase under the new law; CWU trustees approved a 2.2 percent increase last year and are anticipated to authorize another 2.2 percent increase for FY 2019. The following shows some history on tuition changes over time. In those years where there were zero percent changes, there was no additional state funding provided to cover inflationary pressures; they were absorbed by the university.
CWU
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019* 14.0% 14.0% 0.0% 0.0% -4.8% -14.8% 2.2% 2.2% 5.0% 5.0% 0.0% 5.0% 0.0% 0.0% 2.2% 5.0% 5.0% 5.0% 0.0% 5.0% 0.0% 0.0% 2.2% 5.0% 5.0% 5.0% 0.0% 5.0% 0.0% 0.0% 2.2% 5.0%
Resident Undergrad Non-Resident Undergrad Resident Graduate Non-Resident Graduate
* Proposed Increase
Another consideration is how Central compares to the other five 4-year institutions in Washington. Below is a projection of the FY 2019 tuition rates for each of the institutions and CWU’s relative rank (1 is highest tuition, 6 is lowest)
Rank EWU WWU TESC UW WSU 5,700 6,388 6,174 10,127 9,720 6 of 6 22,835 21,800 24,690 35,508 23,956 6 of 6 10,795 9,699 9,885 15,510 11,224 6 of 6 25,931 20,822 23,736 27,801 24,656 5 of 6
Student Type
CWU
Resident Undergraduate
5,928
Non-resident Undergraduate 20,384
Resident Graduate Non-resident Graduate
8,865 20,801
Note: Tuition includes operating and building fee only - no other fees
Action Item – Tuition Given the current law regarding resident undergraduate tuition increases allowed as well as our positioning relative to other institutions in the other three categories, the full 2.2 percent increase for RUG tuition is recommended along with a 5.0 percent increase in all other categories.
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