Former WSU President Samuel H. Smith argues in a Seattle Times column that reducing state support for higher education and financial aid while boosting tuition should spur alarm.
During our current economic crisis, higher education is in an unprotected portion of the state’s budget. Our elected officials have been systematically cutting the state’s support for students as well as for our colleges and universities but there seems to be no visible public outcry, debate or champions.
We already do one of the poorest jobs in the country in educating our state’s citizens. We are 48th in the nation in the percentage of our residents enrolled as undergraduates at our public four-year universities and 49th in enrollments at the graduate or professional levels.
One might ask: Where do our businesses find their well-educated employees? Our state imports more individuals with bachelors and graduate degrees than any other state except California. For every 100 bachelor’s degrees awarded by one of our state’s universities, we import another 76. For every 100 graduate or professional degrees awarded, we import another 125.
Read the full guest editorial at the Seattle Times