SHB 2651 -
By Committee on Higher Education
Strike everything after the enacting clause and insert the following:
"NEW SECTION. Sec. 1 (1) The legislature recognizes that the
burden of higher education costs at public institutions of higher
education has shifted significantly from the state to students since
2008, due to the decline in the proportion of costs supported by state
funding compared to tuition.
(2) The legislature further recognizes that students and the public
would benefit from access to information on higher education revenues
and expenditures and that this information would provide greater
transparency in the higher education system.
(3) The legislature intends to establish a means for providing
easily accessible information on revenues and expenditures of the
state's public institutions of higher education to students and the
public through a web site maintained by a state agency.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 2 A new section is added to chapter 43.41 RCW
to read as follows:
(1) By January 1, 2015, the office shall create a web site with
accessible information on revenues and expenditures for each
institution of higher education as defined in RCW 28B.10.016 and
include a link from the higher education dashboard established in RCW
28B.77.090.
(2) In maintaining revenue and expenditure information, the office
shall:
(a) Ensure the web site is easily accessed by students and the
public;
(b) Wherever possible, use data from existing data sources
including the higher education revenue and expenditure data of the
legislative evaluation and accountability program committee for the
purposes of RCW 44.48.150, data submitted to the office for budget and
accounting purposes, and data collected by the state board for
community and technical colleges and the institutions of higher
education as defined in RCW 28B.10.016;
(c) Include historical data to allow year-to-year comparisons;
(d) Display the data in order to communicate the relative size of
revenues and expenditures for each institution of higher education as
defined in RCW 28B.10.016 in an easily accessible and understandable
format;
(e) Provide basic enrollment information for each institution of
higher education for context; and
(f) Update the web site each year.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 3 The legislature finds that the data
available on the statewide public four-year dashboard displayed by the
office of financial management are useful to prospective students and
their families when making decisions about which institutions of higher
education to apply to and ultimately attend. Therefore, the
legislature intends for the four-year institutions of higher education
and the office of financial management to provide data about branch
campuses in addition to main campuses in order to better serve the
public.
Sec. 4 RCW 28B.77.090 and 2013 c 23 s 60 are each amended to read
as follows:
(1) An accountability monitoring and reporting system is
established as part of a continuing effort to make meaningful and
substantial progress towards the achievement of long-term performance
goals in higher education.
(2) To provide consistent, easily understood data among the public
four-year institutions of higher education within Washington and in
other states, the following data must be reported to the education data
center annually by December 1st, and at a minimum include data
recommended by a national organization representing state chief
executives. The education data center in consultation with the council
may change the data requirements to be consistent with best practices
across the country. This data must, to the maximum extent possible, be
disaggregated by race and ethnicity, gender, state and county of
origin, age, and socioeconomic status, and include the following for
the four-year institutions of higher education:
(a) Bachelor's degrees awarded;
(b) Graduate and professional degrees awarded;
(c) Graduation rates: The number and percentage of students who
graduate within four years for bachelor's degrees and within the
extended time, which is six years for bachelor's degrees;
(d) Transfer rates: The annual number and percentage of students
who transfer from a two-year to a four-year institution of higher
education;
(e) Time and credits to degree: The average length of time in
years and average number of credits that graduating students took to
earn a bachelor's degree;
(f) Enrollment in remedial education: The number and percentage of
entering first-time undergraduate students who place into and enroll in
remedial mathematics, English, or both;
(g) Success beyond remedial education: The number and percentage
of entering first-time undergraduate students who complete entry
college-level math and English courses within the first two consecutive
academic years;
(h) Credit accumulation: The number and percentage of first-time
undergraduate students completing two quarters or one semester worth of
credit during their first academic year;
(i) Retention rates: The number and percentage of entering
undergraduate students who enroll consecutively from fall-to-spring and
fall-to-fall at an institution of higher education;
(j) Course completion: The percentage of credit hours completed
out of those attempted during an academic year;
(k) Program participation and degree completion rates in bachelor
and advanced degree programs in the sciences, which includes
agriculture and natural resources, biology and biomedical sciences,
computer and information sciences, engineering and engineering
technologies, health professions and clinical sciences, mathematics and
statistics, and physical sciences and science technologies, including
participation and degree completion rates for students from
traditionally underrepresented populations;
(l) Annual enrollment: Annual unduplicated number of students
enrolled over a twelve-month period at institutions of higher education
including by student level;
(m) Annual first-time enrollment: Total first-time students
enrolled in a four-year institution of higher education;
(n) Completion ratio: Annual ratio of undergraduate and graduate
degrees and certificates, of at least one year in expected length,
awarded per one hundred full-time equivalent undergraduate students at
the state level;
(o) Market penetration: Annual ratio of undergraduate and graduate
degrees and certificates, of at least one year in program length,
awarded relative to the state's population age eighteen to twenty-four
years old with a high school diploma;
(p) Student debt load: Median three-year distribution of debt
load, excluding private loans or debts incurred before coming to the
institution;
(q) Data related to enrollment, completion rates, participation
rates, and debt load shall be disaggregated for students in the
following income brackets to the maximum extent possible:
(i) Up to seventy percent of the median family income;
(ii) Between seventy-one percent and one hundred twenty-five
percent of the median family income; and
(iii) Above one hundred twenty-five percent of the median family
income; and
(r) Yearly percentage increases in the average cost of
undergraduate instruction.
(3) Four-year institutions of higher education must count all
students when collecting data, not only first-time, full-time first-year students.
(4)(a) In conjunction with the office of financial management, all
four-year institutions of higher education including branch campuses
established under chapter 28B.45 RCW, must display the data described
in subsection (2) of this section in a uniform dashboard format on the
office of financial management's web site no later than December 1,
2011, ((and)) for main campuses and December 1, 2014, for branch
campuses. The web site must be updated thereafter annually by December
1st. To the maximum extent possible, the information must be viewable
by race and ethnicity, gender, state and county of origin, age, and
socioeconomic status. The information may be tailored to meet the
needs of various target audiences such as students, researchers, and
the general public. The data displayed for a branch campus under this
section shall not be considered separately from the main campus for the
purpose of performance goals in higher education.
(b) When data suppression is necessary to protect student privacy,
the education data center shall avoid redacting data to the maximum
extent possible, using alternatives such as combining data groupings or
using the percentage of students in place of the specific number of
students.
(5) The council shall use performance data from the education data
center for the purposes of strategic planning, to report on progress
toward achieving statewide goals, and to develop priorities proposed in
the ten-year plan for higher education."
SHB 2651 -
By Committee on Higher Education
On page 1, line 1 of the title, after "creating" strike the remainder of the title and insert "higher education transparency; amending RCW 28B.77.090; adding a new section to chapter 43.41 RCW; and creating new sections."
EFFECT: Directs the office of financial management, rather than
the education data center, to create a web site with accessible
information on revenues and expenditures. Removes confidentiality and
public records language. No longer requires the institutions to place
a link on their web sites to the dashboard. Removes all new language
from the education data center's statute and places it in a new section
in the office of financial management's chapter.
Requires all branch campuses to display specific data on the office
of financial management's dashboard for four-year institutions of
higher education by December 1, 2014. Specifies that data displayed
for branch campuses will not be considered separately from their main
campuses for the purpose of performance goals. Directs that when data
suppression is necessary to protect student privacy, the education data
center must avoid redacting data to the maximum extent possible.