This editorial will appear in Tuesday’s print edition.

The Internet keeps on disrupting higher education – sometimes even in a good way. The latest example is the Open Course Library just completed by Washington’s two-year colleges.

The library (opencourselibrary.org) is an online trove of free courses and free or low-cost textbooks developed by local faculty members. The materials cover 81 of Washington’s most popular lower-division classes – principles of accounting, microbiology, symbolic logic, English composition, etc.

The whole enterprise, begun in 2011, bypasses the traditional trappings of college. No big, expensive textbooks, no snoozing in the back of lecture halls, no classrooms.

Price is the selling point. The courses are free, with downloadable content, and the textbooks cost at most $30. In contrast, commercial textbooks can cost well upward of $100 apiece.
The price difference can be decisive for a student struggling along on a meager income. One poll by USA Today suggested that 40 percent of college students didn’t buy a required textbook for lack of money.

The Open Course Library was a joint venture of Washington’s two-year colleges, the Legislature and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; the colleges provided the intellectual grunt work; lawmakers and the foundation provided $1.5 million in start up money.

This shouldn’t be oversold. Commercial textbooks can be written by academic giants, designed by pedagogical experts, and difficult to match at the local level. Easy as they are to vilify, textbook publishers are a critical part of higher education; it might not be a good thing if competing freebies forced them to slash their investments in high-end books, DVDs and websites.
Read more »

This editorial will appear in Sunday’s print edition.

Some lawmakers have big plans for helping students get college and technical degrees. Unfortunately, they don’t have big plans for paying for it.

The Legislature’s record of funding college opportunity is abysmal, even factoring in the economic whirlwinds of the Great Recession. It typically uses the higher education system – universities, community and technical colleges – as a fiscal piggy bank. It’s the easiest thing to break when money runs short.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recently released a report on what’s happened to public colleges since the recession hit. …

Read more »

This editorial will appear in Thursday’s print edition.

Need grants for undocumented students is a good idea whose time hasn’t come. It shouldn’t be holding up other college assistance legislation, as seems to be happening in the state Senate.

The argument against expanding financial aid to young illegal immigrants this year can be summed up in a single word: McCleary.

In last year’s McCleary decision, the state Supreme Court ordered the Legislature to fully fund basic education. Lawmakers already face a projected deficit of nearly $1 billion, and some believe it would take yet another $1 billion to begin meeting …

Read more »

This editorial will appear in Sunday’s print edition.

There are two explanations for last year’s 6 percent drop in community college enrollment.

One is worth a party. According to the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, more Washingtonians are finding jobs and drifting away from school.

The other is disturbing. Marty Brown, executive director of the board, says that rising costs are likely scaring off would-be students.

That’s pretty much self-evident, given that tuition has risen by 12 percent each of the last two years. It now costs $4,000 a year to attend a community college – about what it cost to attend the University of Washington 10 years ago.

The Legislature has been busily dismantling Washington’s public colleges and universities since the Great Recession hit. As in past recessions, lawmakers have treated the higher education system as a piggy bank – something to break and raid to spare other state services. They’ve reduced appropriations to colleges by an estimated $1.4 billion since 2009.

Yes, higher education must suffer its share of cutbacks when money gets scarce. But few if any states have cannibalized their colleges the way Washington has; the Legislature has cut direct funding to its universities by as much as half, to its community colleges by roughly a quarter.
Read more »

This editorial will appear in Tuesday’s print edition.

Here’s another pin to stick in the balloon of complacency about Washington’s education system.

The Seattle Times has unearthed an exceptionally disturbing trend: This state isn’t merely failing to provide enough college opportunity to its children. It is actually slipping backward – providing less than it did 20 years ago.

One important indicator is the percentage of students who enroll full time in either a two- or four-year college immediately after graduating from high school.

In 1992, the Times reported Sunday, 58 percent of Washington high schoolers went straight into higher education, well above the national average of 54 percent. Our rank: 11th in the nation.

As of 2008, though, the national average had risen to 63 percent – but Washington’s rate of immediate college-going had fallen to 51 percent. Our rank: 46th in the nation.

These numbers might seem to contradict Washington’s generally strong education statistics. Our state’s tech industries, especially, abound in people with bachelor’s and graduate degrees.

But there’s no contradiction. As we have often noted, many of Washington’s largest and most profitable companies – Microsoft, for example – often have to look to other states, even other countries, when recruiting well-educated professionals.
Read more »

This editorial will appear in Sunday’s print edition.

A new Senate education committee report on the nation’s for-profit colleges paints a disturbing picture of billions in taxpayer dollars being spent on student aid, with precious little to show for it.

Tuition at these colleges tends to be pricey, with associate degrees costing at least four times as much as comparable community college programs. Yet many of the credits students earn are not transferable to other institutions and often don’t qualify them for the professional licensing they need – despite what the TV commercials claim.

More than a quarter of federal student aid now goes to for-profit schools – and that doesn’t even include military GI Bill benefits. These schools are aggressively pitching their sales messages to veterans – sometimes even as they are recuperating from war injuries. Only after the vets have spent their benefits do they discover that they have little to show for it.
Read more »

There’s bad news for would-be college students, then good news, then more bad news. Stick with us.

The bad – for most Washington students – is the new round of steep tuition increases headed their way. Earlier this month, Washington State University approved its second consecutive 16 percent increase, which will raise the price of next year’s schooling by $1,500.

The University of Washington also looks headed for a 16 percent increase; the UW and WSU will each cost something north of $11,000 in 2012-2013. Tuition will be lower at other public universities and lower still at community and technical …

Read more »

This editorial will appear in Friday’s print edition.

In 1898, Pacific Lutheran University was in such dire financial straits that its first president – Bjug Harstad –  headed off to Alaska for a year and a half hoping to find enough gold to bail out the school. He found none.

Current president Loren Anderson, who is leaving at the end of May and getting a big all-campus farewell Saturday at PLU, also faced a deep financial challenge when he took the reins 20 years ago. But instead of panning for gold in Alaska, he set out an ambitious strategic plan for righting the PLU ship.

Today, he’s leaving the Parkland liberal arts and professional school in a far better place than he found it two decades ago. In fact, campus historian and retired professor Philip Nordquist says Anderson has been the most successful president in PLU’s 122-year history.

It’s easy to see why Nordquist thinks so.

Read more »