News and perspective on public policy issues affecting Washington's economy and quality of life, brought to you by the Economic Opportunity Institute.
Focusing scarce public resources on students from the lowest-income families is a reasonable policy choice, but the long term disinvestment in higher education by both the state and federal governments has clearly limited college access for low income and middle class students. As the cost of attending college continues to escalate, more and more students [...]
Low-income state residents are not the only ones whose dreams of higher education are thwarted by rising tuition. While schools have at least attempted to off-set some of the rising costs for low-income students, middle-income students and their families, particularly those who fall just above the cutoffs for most benefits, end up being hit hard. [...]
Legislators and education administrators claim that higher income families can afford tuition hikes, and that lower income students will receive increased financial aid, both from the state and from new federal policies. However, the evidence suggests that injecting a market-driven model of financing into the public sphere of education will lead to a lack of [...]
For the past thirty years, Washington State has been reducing the level of appropriations to higher education. In 1980-81, undergraduate tuition accounted for 25% of the total costs of undergraduate instruction in research universities, while the state covered the remaining 75%. By the 2007-08 academic year, tuition covered 62% and the state only 38%. The [...]
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