State community college board votes to raise tuition 12 percent
Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges board members (from left) Sharon Fairchild, Jim Bricker and Elizabeth Chen listen to a discussion during the board meeting at Big Bend Community College yesterday.
MOSES LAKE - The state Board of Community and Technical Colleges has approved an average 12 percent increase in tuition for the 2012-13 school year.
The decision affects Big Bend Community College students in Moses Lake.
The vote came at the board meeting held at Big Bend yesterday. All seven board members present voted in favor.
Tuition for full-time students will increase 13 percent, while part-time students will face an 11 percent increase. That adds up to an average of 12 percent, said Jan Yoshiwara, deputy executive director for education for the board.
The increase approved yesterday follows a 12 percent increase imposed for the 2011-12 school year.
The increase is part of a trend where college costs that used to be paid by the state are now paid by students. Yoshiwara said community college students now pay about 40 percent of the costs.
"This decision to increase tuition at this rate was a very, very tough decision," Yoshiwara said. Board members asked a lot of questions and discussed the options at length before the vote, she said.
The decision was influenced by cuts made to community college allocations in the 2011-13 budget, Yoshiwara said. Staff members told the board that without a tuition increase it would be difficult to maintain course offerings, and fewer classes would have the effect of limiting enrollment.
"What we're about is maintaining access for our students," Yoshiwara said.
But in light of tuition increases, "we are working very hard - I think harder than we have - to reduce costs for students," Yoshiwara said.
Among other things "we have really ramped up on online instruction," she said. Some textbooks are now available online, and printouts of textbooks are available at a much lower cost.
Community colleges are changing the way they teach remedial classes. Yoshiwara cited the commercial driver's license classes at Big Bend as an example; students work on the remedial instruction while they are studying the commercial driving curriculum.