Tuition to Fund Financial Aid?

One bill that seems to be, along with the Governor's task force bill, dominating discussions in Olympia is Rep. Reuven Carlyle's Higher Education Opportunity Act. The Seattle democrat has proactively extended an invitation to students to offer input in his bill, as he has said he understands that "nothing passes without students."

What it in essence does is temporarily give boards of trustees the ability to set undergraduate tuition, and ties tuition increases to significant increases in financial aid funding.

We hate the idea of relying on tuition dollars to do this, but it does help to preserve accessibility for low- and middle-income students.

The unfortunate reality of higher-ed funding this session is that we are going to have to rely more on tuition to fill gaping budget holes. The bad news is a quality education will be less affordable. The good news is, well, the University would be able to use tuition dollars to operate at levels that would not be as bad as it would be without tuition.

Here is The Daily's coverage of this bill, and this story includes a healthy dose of student perspective: Mixed feelings among students about new tuition bill

Here's Rep. Carlyle's blog explaining his bill: The largest expansion of middle class financial aid in state history: Higher Education Opportunity Act

And the Seattle Times' coverage on the bill: Bill: different tuition for each program