Posts Tagged ‘budget cuts’
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
Caleb Hutton // THE WESTERN FRONT
The front-page story on SeattlePI.com right now is a five-page (!) article on dwindling public support for higher education in Washington, and, by extension, the west coast.
It’s a comprehensive piece that gives a fuller context to the catch-22 this generation is caught in: It takes a college education to get a job that pays good wages, but to afford a college education, you’d need a job that pays good wages.
It also takes a good look at why the University of Washington and other colleges are recruiting more out-of-state students.
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Tags: budget cuts, colleges, out-of-state, state budget cuts, state news, tuition increases, universities, university of washington, Washington state, washington state legislature, west coast
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Sunday, April 10th, 2011
Caleb Hutton // THE WESTERN FRONT
The quote comes from a blistering Associated Press article about Washington’s budget crisis and its effect on higher ed, released today.
From the article:
Statistics show that college graduates experience lower unemployment and score higher-earning jobs than people without four-year degrees, and a college-educated labor force has historically been the driving force behind economic growth. Yet state lawmakers target higher education during rough budget years for a simple reason: “Because we can,” said Rep. Larry Haler, R-Richland, ranking Republican on the House Higher Education committee.
Some administrators are relieved to see that the operating budgets for state colleges don’t suffer much under the House’s plan — and Western arguably got off the easiest of any university this time around.
But the reason the budgets don’t suffer much, as the AP points out, is that state colleges make up for lost dollars almost entirely through tuition increases.
Those increases will compound to a 28 percent increase in tuition over the next two years. To put that in perspective, in most classes that’s the difference between a D+ and a solid A.
The AP also spoke with a Western student about how cuts would impact her personally.
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Tags: Associated Press, budget cuts, HEC board, operating budget, state budget cuts, tuition, tuition hikes, tuition increases
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Saturday, April 2nd, 2011
Caleb Hutton // THE WESTERN FRONT
As if the current budget wasn’t sobering enough.
House Democrats will release their “long-awaited” budget proposal on Monday in an effort to meet yet another budget shortfall, this time of $5.1 billion, the Seattle Times is reporting.
“A new budget” has become synonymous with “new cuts to education” for the past few years, as we’ve seen state support for public universities dip to record lows.
Word is that a caravan of about 20 Western students are heading to Olympia to comment during the public forum.
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Tags: budget cuts, house budget proposal, washington state legislature
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Thursday, March 10th, 2011
Caleb Hutton // THE WESTERN FRONT
Students from Western (and maybe from universities around the state) will be protesting against budget cuts on March 21 at the State Capitol Building, according to a Facebook event page.
The event has about 400 people listed as attending at the time of this post, with another 620 saying they might show up.
From what I can tell, most of those 1,020 people have immediate connections to the Western network. But judging by the event description, students from other universities may be joining in. A quick Google search didn’t turn up anything, but I’ll see what I can find out tomorrow.
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Tags: budget cuts, Olympia, protests, washington state legislature
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Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
Brianna Gibbs // THE WESTERN FRONT
Whatcom County residents packed the Bellingham City Hall council chambers Tuesday evening to learn how proposed budget cuts to higher education could impact Bellingham and the rest of the county.
Ken Oplinger, president of the Bellingham/Whatcom Chamber of Commerce and Industry, moderated the event and said state support for higher education would be cut in half with the passage of the governor’s proposed budget.
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Tags: Bellingham City Hall, bellingham techincal college, budget cuts, higher education, tim douglas
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Friday, February 25th, 2011
Brianna Gibbs // THE WESTERN FRONT
Three public universities in Washington sent letters to Olympia and The Seattle Times this week in an effort to sway lawmakers away from proposed budget cuts to higher education.
Western, the University of Washington and Washington State University each outlined what proposed budget cuts could mean.
Gov. Chris Gregoire proposed a $35 million cut to Western’s operating budget, and President Bruce Shepard responded to that figure with some possible impacts it could have on our university.
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Tags: Bruce Shepard, budget cuts, rally to restore education, university of washington, washington state legislature, washington state university
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Friday, February 11th, 2011
Caleb Hutton // THE WESTERN FRONT
A Board of Trustees meeting is happening right now, so here’s a handy breakdown of the budget situation, issued by President Bruce Shepard and written in plainer English than usual.
About a month ago, Shepard said in a blog post that he would be giving a presentation about how damaging the cuts have been, even though a recent audit suggested that, in terms of finances, “we would seem to be doing OK.”
Just so we’re clear, on a blog that has mostly blogged about Shepard lately, I’m now blogging about what Shepard blogged about on his blog.
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Tags: audit, board of trustees, Bruce Shepard, budget cuts
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Thursday, February 10th, 2011
Caleb Hutton // THE WESTERN FRONT
Here’s a short, snappy exchange between President Bruce Shepard and a psychology major.
In September, when a $3 million cut led to the elimination of 14 low-enrollment majors, one student decided to go straight to the top, demanding to know whether she would be affected. (The majors to be cut had already been posted elsewhere: in newspapers, on the university website, etc.)
Shepard obliged, even adding a personal note.
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Tags: Bruce Shepard, budget cuts, psychology majors, The Bruce Files
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Tuesday, February 8th, 2011
Caleb Hutton // THE WESTERN FRONT
This will be the first in a series of posts about e-mails sent by President Bruce Shepard in the past year. The e-mails were obtained in a public records request that I blogged about last week.
I’ll try to post a new one every weekday.
So here we go.
In October, as Western officials were debating whether to move the music library into the main library building, Shepard received an e-mail from State Rep. Mary Helen Roberts, D-Lynnwood.
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Tags: Bruce Shepard, budget cuts, music library, The Bruce Files
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