BILL REQ. #:  H-1675.1 

Read first time 02/14/2005.   Referred to Committee on Higher Education.

     AN ACT Relating to increasing funding for bachelor's and graduate degrees in high-demand fields; and adding a new section to chapter 28B.10 RCW.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 1   A new section is added to chapter 28B.10 RCW to read as follows:
     (1) The legislature finds that Washington lags behind the country and peer states in production of bachelor's and graduate degrees in the fields needed to invent new technologies, attract new businesses and new industries to the state, and spur economic development and job growth. According to an analysis of data compiled by the national center for education statistics for 2001:
     (a) Washington ties for last place among nine peer states in the number of college graduates in engineering per one hundred thousand in population;
     (b) Despite the presence of two major research universities, Washington is tied for sixth place among nine peer states in the number of college graduates in biological and life sciences per one hundred thousand population;
     (c) Washington's ratio of doctoral degrees to bachelor's degrees falls far below all peer states, particularly in the critical areas of science and engineering where research and development by staff with advanced expertise is crucial for innovation and product design.
     (2) The legislature further finds that a key contributing factor to Washington's low production of high-demand degrees is the practice of funding student enrollment at universities based on an average cost per student, despite clear evidence that junior and senior-level courses in engineering and the hard sciences cost thirty to forty percent above the average, while junior and senior-level courses in fields such as business and social sciences cost thirty to forty percent below the average at the state's two research universities.
     (3) Therefore the legislature intends to establish a goal to increase course enrollment in engineering, technology, computer science, hard sciences such as chemistry and physics, and mathematics in order to double the number of degrees awarded in these high-demand fields per one hundred thousand population by the year 2015. The legislature further intends to accomplish this goal by increasing per-student funding for enrollment in high-demand fields by twenty-five percent, while decreasing per-student funding for enrollment in other fields by twenty-five percent.