Higher Education Cuts Threaten Middle Class

The WA St Budget & Policy Center just released a new report documenting both the severity of the cuts to higher education over the past four years, as well as the sobering consequences of those cuts.

The report, "Undermining Prosperity: Higher Education Cuts Weaken Access, Affordability, and Quality," finds that state support for higher education has fallen by $1.4 billion since 2009. The obvious result is tuition has soared and access has declined. Less obvious is the long-term threat to our economic security.

"The pillars of a successful higher education system—quality, access and affordability— are weakened with each cut," the report concludes. "If they continue to be weakened, they will eventually crumble with our children left to pick up the pieces.  Like many areas of the state budget, support for higher education will continue to fall short of meeting the need unless revenue is on the table. Policymakers have tried and failed to do more with less for the past two years. And the story continues as they write the budget for the next two years."

You can sign up to receive regular updates from the Budget & Policy Center here.