Brief Description: Increasing the operating fee waiver authority for Central Washington University.

Sponsors: By House Committee on Appropriations (originally sponsored by Representatives Wallace, Anderson, Sells, Hinkle, Roberts, Warnick, Buri, B. Sullivan, Priest, Hasegawa and Dunn).

House Committee on Higher Education
House Committee on Appropriations
Senate Committee on Higher Education
Senate Committee on Ways & Means

Background:

By statute, higher education institutions may waive all or a portion of tuition for certain types of students and purposes. The various waivers fall into three broad types: state supported, discretionary, and space available. For state supported waivers it is assumed that state moneys in the institutions' budgets will offset the tuition not collected from students to whom waivers are granted. For discretionary and space available waivers, this offset is not assumed.

State supported waivers are capped at a certain percentage of the total operating fee revenue the institution collects. Within its respective percentage caps, each institution decides how to apportion its waiver authority among the various categories of state-supported waivers. The cap for each institution is as follows:

(1) University of Washington	21 percent
(2) Washington State University	20 percent
(3) Eastern Washington University	11 percent
(4) Central Washington University	8 percent
(5) Western Washington University	10 percent
(6) The Evergreen State College	6 percent
(7) Community Colleges as a whole	35 percent

The waiver caps were established in 1992 as a result of changes to the way tuition revenue was treated. Prior to 1992, higher education institutions collected tuition and transferred that revenue to the State General Fund. In 1992, legislation was enacted to allow institutions to retain tuition revenues. At the same time, caps were established that set the maximum percentage of total tuition that each institution may waive for the purposes of state supported waivers. The amounts of the caps were based on the percentage of tuition revenue waived at each institution in 1992. When transferring State General Fund tuition dollars, the state provided funds to offset the tuition revenue forgone through waiver authority. This amount has been part of carry-forward dollars for each institution since 1992.

Summary:

The tuition waiver authority for Central Washington University if increased from 8 percent to 10 percent.

Votes on Final Passage:

House   97   0
Senate   48   0

Effective: July 22, 2007