SB 5868 - DIGEST

Declares an intent to articulate a strategic direction for public higher education on issues of access, affordability, service delivery, and accountability that will guide coordinated decision making on policies, operating budgets, and capital plans.

Declares an intent to provide the management tools and resources necessary to implement the strategic direction. Additional investment in higher education is needed, but the public deserves assurance that such an investment is based on a clear plan and will be carefully managed with specific expectations and measurable outcomes.

Declares that it is the strategic direction and intent of the legislature, by the year 2012, to: (1) Increase capacity in higher education by thirty thousand enrollment slots, with fourteen thousand enrollment slots dedicated to expanding work force training;

(2) Graduate three thousand eight hundred additional baccalaureate degrees per year by focusing degree production at the regional universities in partnership with community and technical colleges;

(3) Expand programs and enrollments targeted toward high demand fields by twelve thousand five hundred enrollment slots;

(4) Maintain the market responsiveness and multiple missions of the community and technical college system, including transfer preparation, adult remedial education, work force training, and life-long learning;

(5) Assure that the cost of attendance for all students is less than thirty percent of family income;

(6) Through the strategic master plan for higher education, create specific targets for enrollments and degree production through analysis of statewide and regional demographics and economic needs and comparison to peer institutions and national benchmarks;

(7) Implement the strategic direction and master plan through performance contracts with each institution of higher education;

(8) Through financial aid and other new financing or enrollment allocation strategies, leverage the state investment in higher education by using existing capacity at independent four-year institutions of higher education; and

(9) Increase the state's overall investment in higher education by four hundred sixty million dollars per biennium, including one hundred million dollars per biennium invested in high priority research, to ensure that Washington's institutions of higher education continue to offer affordable access to the highest quality education and conduct world class research and discovery.

Repeals RCW 28B.10.776, 28B.10.778, 28B.10.780, 28B.10.782, 28B.10.786, 28B.45.060, 28B.45.080, and 28B.76.270.