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.

(more…)