UFWS News

UFWS Message, Working Class Heroes

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:48:00 GMT

<p> Working Class Heroes   <span style="font-size: smaller; ">by Bill Lyne  <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ufwsblog.org">www.ufwsblog.org</a></span></p> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">A big thanks to Senators Hill, Tom, Becker, Kastama, and Litzow, who have put some money in our pocket here at the blog.  Last year, when the bill to establish Western Governors University-Washington was slithering through the legislature and everybody was promising that WGU would never come back looking for state funding, a betting pool developed around how long it would be before WGU came back looking for state funding.  The smart money was on two years, thinking the WGU folks would have the decorum to lay low for at least one legislative session.  But on a hunch we doubled down on one year.  And now, exactly a year later, Senators Hill, Tom, et al have introduced SB 6322—“Allowing nonprofit institution s recognized by the state of Washington to be eligible to participate in the state need grant program.”</div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "><img alt="Image" data-cke-saved-src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/roll.jpg" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; float: right; " width="287" height="229" src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/roll.jpg" /></div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Come to Papa.</div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">WGU is a nominally non-profit enterprise, but their business model is no different from for-profit operations like Kaplan or Phoenix.  They depend a lot on federal and state financial aid, which is why the play for state need grant makes sense.</div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Their business also depends on a special appeal to working people.  With the same faux populism that Newt Gingrich uses to bash Mitt Romney, WGU-Washington tells prospective students that they can go to school after they’ve put the kids to bed, they can get credit for all the things they’ve learned out there in the rough and tumble world and they don’t have to put up with all the stuff that those twenty-year olds at real college do—football games, beer bongs, classes, actual professors, stuff like that. </div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Despite the fact that we’re hopelessly snotty and elitist college professors here at the blog, we’re actually all for the Western Governor’s model in theory.  Godspeed to those who can teach themselves, those whose work and life experience have given them the knowledge and skill necessary to earn a credential, those who can demonstrate competence without logging any class time.  And certainly we’re all for people with jobs getting the training they need to get better jobs. </div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">What we’re not for is those people getting ripped off. </div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Tuition at WGU-Washington will run you between $2890 and $3250 every six months.  Then there’s the extras: the resource fee ($145), the application fee ($65), the science lab fee ($350), the student teaching fee ($1000), and the education leadership practicum fee ($1000).  So let’s say you’re going to WGU to get a BA in Information technology.  And let’s say it takes you their advertised two years, half the time a real BA would take.  That’ll cost you $12,120, give or take (Nursing an Teaching will run you more). </div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">And here’s what you get for that 12 grand:</div> <ul style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 20px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "> <li style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Coursework attempted and completed, and learning resources (excluding textbooks) scheduled into your Degree Plan.</li> <li style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Assessments (limited by individual course guidelines and a standard number of permitted re-takes)Counsel from dedicated mentors.</li> <li style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Note: Tuition costs do not include the price of textbooks and various materials (varies by course).  </li> </ul> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">This is taken straight from the WGU-Washington website.  Translated, it means you get  1)  Course materials you can find for free in lots of other places all over the web (but not textbooks, those are extra); 2) some tests; and 3) someone to call for pep talks (not to be confused with teachers).  Twelve thousand bucks for that.</div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">If WGU were really the working class heroes they claim to be, they would post links to all of the free learning resources for the subjects they teach online.  Then they would make their assessments available for a $100 processing fee.  You could do the same studying at night or on your coffee break and then take the tests and get your degree for a hundred bucks instead of twelve thousand.  The pep talks you’d have to get from your friends and family. </div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">That would, of course, cut into the budget for all the other stuff WGU does.  Advertising would take a hit and we’d certainly miss those peppy WGU-Washington commercials every ten minutes on T.V.  And then there’s lobbying--the Salt Lake Tribune reports that from 1999 to 2005, WGU spent at least $1.6 million on lobbying.  And the executive compensation packages would surely suffer. (A lot of folks in Olympia made a big fuss a few weeks ago when the CWU Board of Trustees all got high and gave Jim Gaudino $500,000 spread over the next five years—WGU Chancellor Bob Mendenhall’s $700.000-plus annual salary makes President Gaudino look like one of the 99 percent.)</div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">That’s the stuff that’s now going to be covered by state need grant money—taxpayer money.  Or, at least we have to assume that’s where it will go.  At a time when the legislature is regularly beating on our very open and transparent real public universities to become more open and transparent, Washington’s sparkly new public online university is utterly unaccountable to the state.  WGU-Washington does not make its accreditation reports, its graduation rates, its student debt loads, its budgets, or its salaries publicly available.  SB 6322 is asking Washington taxpayers to take it on faith that their money going to WGU-Washington is somehow a good investment. </div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">But hey, WGU did turn out to be a pretty safe bet.</div> </div> <p> -- <p> web page: www.ufws.org<BR> blog: www.ufwsblog.org<BR> unsubscribe: http://www.ufws.org/mail/mail.cgi/u/ufww_news/</p>

UFWS Message, Signs Taken For Small Wonders, Part 1

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:46:00 GMT

<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "><img alt="Image" data-cke-saved-src="http://www.ufww.org/ufws/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/anag.png" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; float: right; width: 297px; height: 129px; " src="http://www.ufww.org/ufws/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/anag.png" /><strong><span style="font-size: larger; ">Signs Taken For Small Wonders, Part 1</span></strong><span style="font-size: small; ">   by Bill Lyne  </span><span style="font-size: larger; "><a target="_blank" href="http://ufwsblog.org"><span style="font-size: small; ">ufwsblog.org</span></a></span></div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "><span style="line-height: 1.5; ">Like a SuperPac not coordinating with the McKenna campaign, the Seattle Times called out Democratic Leadership by name this week.  They told us that a study from the University of Pennsylvania had told them that Chris Gregoire, Frank Chopp, and Lisa Brown are responsible for the fact that not enough people in Washington go to college. </span></div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">A big tip of the blog hat to the folks at the Times and their capacity for imaginative leaps.  The Penn report only mentions Gregoire in passing and says nothing about Chopp or Brown even though it is titled “State Policy Leadership Vacuum.”  A better title might have been “Ivy League Thinking Vacuum.”</div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">The study starts off well, detailing how Washington’s public universities are among the best, most efficient, and most productive in the country.  It then stays strong, pointing out how underfunded and deeply cut our universities have been.</div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">But then, after a brief detour for some obligatory K-12 bashing, the report goes right off the logical rails, telling us that the solution for saving an excellent system that has been devastated by relentless budget cuts is to spend money on more bureaucracy and new layers of administration. </div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Being the college professors we are here at the blog, we try to steer clear of making fun of academics who ignore the obvious in favor far-fetched theory and lugubrious detail.  But in this case, it’s pretty tempting to put on our best James Carville drawl, turn to our colleagues at Penn and say, “It’s the money, Stupid!”</div> </div> <p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5; ">Which is something we might also say to our friends at the Times.  The next time they want to bash Democrats (and here we mean all of them, not just the guv, the speaker, and the majority leader) for lack of leadership, they should point to Washington’s ridiculous tax policy, and the way that Tim Eyman and millions and millions of corporate dollars have hijacked Washington’s future.  You can’t rescue Washington’s state universities with Ivy League studies, you’re gonna need some money.</span></p> <p> -- <p> web page: www.ufws.org<BR> blog: www.ufwsblog.org<BR> unsubscribe: http://www.ufws.org/mail/mail.cgi/u/ufww_news/</p>

UFWS Message, STEM and the State

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 04:01:00 GMT

<p><span style="font-size: larger; ">STEM and the State</span>    <span style="font-size: smaller; ">by Bill Lyne   </span><a href="http://www.ufwsblog.org"><span style="font-size: smaller; ">www.ufwsblog.org</span></a><span style="font-size: smaller; "> </span></p> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "><br /> Last month, Western Washington University held its Board of Trustees meeting at Safeco Field, the house that Washington taxpayers built.  The last part of the meeting was devoted to a panel discussion with a distinguished group of legislators and business leaders. </div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "><img alt="Image" data-cke-saved-src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/left_1.jpg" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; float: left; width: 211px; height: 225px; " src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/left_1.jpg" /></div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">One of the peppiest panelists was a fellow named Lew McMurran, the Vice President of Government and External Affairs for the Washington Technology Industry Association.  Mr. McMurran enthusiastically led the panel in chorus after chorus of Washington’s state universities need to produce more graduates in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields. He told the trustees that while those sociology degrees might be interesting if you like that kind of thing, it was time to quit funding that nonsense and pour all the resources into the techno-degrees that his folks needed to hire.</div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Here at the blog, we can’t tell you what a relief it is that sociology seems to have supplanted English as the whipping boy of choice when our hard-nosed pragmatist friends want to decry the frivolity of college majors that are not business or STEM related.  Social scientists falling to the status of poets can only be yet another sign of progress in a late capitalist world. </div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">But alas, much as it might pain us to say it, we still need the sociologists, if for no other reason than they subsidize the engineers.  The good news about those worthless humanities and social science degrees is that they’re cheap.  The professors have no job prospects in the real world so they work for peanuts, there aren’t any labs and it has become perfectly acceptable to batch process those students in classes of 500.  The ever-increasing tuition that philosophy and history majors take out more and more loans to pay more than covers the cost of their navel-gazing education, so universities can take the extra and ship it down to the science and technology end of campus to help pay for the real degrees.&nb sp; So the key to more STEM degrees turns out to be more humanities and social science students.</div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "><img alt="Image" data-cke-saved-src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/right_1.jpg" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; float: right; width: 211px; height: 225px; " src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/right_1.jpg" /></div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">But STEM cannot live on sociologists alone.  The post-World War Two techno-industrial boom that drove American prosperity in the second half of the twentieth century was fueled by public university systems that were almost completely subsidized by state and federal tax dollars.  That public investment made America the runaway leader in scientific and technological development.  STEM-mania (and the job market it serves) is one of the strongest arguments for public universities that are much more robustly public than what we have now.</div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">But when the conversation at the Western Board meeting turned to taxes, Mr. McMurran’s enthusiasm dimmed considerably.  In response to a couple of legislators who felt that the state should explore some new tax revenue and that perhaps businesses (especially the ones stockpiling mountains of profit) should pay their fair share, Mr. McMurran reacted like a parent whose child has farted in church, going so far as to suggest that many legislators have been just plain rude to business on the subject of taxes.<br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: ini tial; " /> <br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; " /> Calling for more STEM degrees without at the same time demanding more business taxpayer investment in public universities is kind of like trying to make cake without flour and eggs.  STEM degrees are expensive, which means that you either have to revive state support to universities or you have to keep jacking up tuition.  And the more you raise tuition, the more you create a student population that won’t necessarily be interested in STEM degrees. </div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Sadly enough, when students arrive at universities, we still let them choose their own major, much to the chagrin of those people who want universities to produce more STEMs the way a sweatshop in a third world country might produce more Nike shoes.  Students from lower middle and working class backgrounds (precisely the students now being squeezed out of higher education) tend to be the ones who choose the business and STEM majors, the majors with sound economic futures.  The children of the professional, managerial, and owning classes, the ones whose parents bought them piano lessons and had the nanny take them to museums, tend to be the ones who fill up the music, philosophy, and poetry classes.  At Western, in the mid st of the Great Recession and with tuition going up by double-digit percentages every year, demand for Creative Writing degrees has never been higher.*</div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">The technocratic industrial revolution in the second half of the twentieth century was not spawned by private universities.  It was fueled by widespread access to publicly funded public universities that allowed the children of bus drivers and typists to become scientists and engineers. </div> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">*These are, of course, just the impressionistic musings of an English professor.  For the real data on the relationship between economic class of origin and career choice, you should probably talk to a, um, sociologist. </div> </div> <p> -- <p> web page: www.ufws.org<BR> blog: www.ufwsblog.org<BR> unsubscribe: http://www.ufws.org/mail/mail.cgi/u/ufww_news/</p>

UFWS Message: Get Off the Fence

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 05:07:00 GMT

<p><span style="font-size: larger; ">Get Off the Fence   </span>by Bill Lyne   <a href="http://www.ufwsblog.org">ufwsblog.org</a></p> <p><br /> Sit on a fence long enough and you end up with a fence post up your ass.</p> <p>So now is the time for everyone in Washington’s public university community—students, parents, alumni, faculty, staff, administration, and trustees—to get off the fence and strongly support revenue solutions to the new state budget problem.</p> <p> </p> <p><img align="right" alt="" src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/fencesitter.gif " />With the ink still drying on last year’s bi-partisan, sustainable, all-cuts budget, the state economist has predicted that tax revenues will be down another 1.4 billion. Much hubbub has ensued and on November 28 state legislators will head back to Olympia for a special session to try to put the house back in order.</p> <p>Times like these are especially tough on public universities. Unlike those snotty kids in public schools or those pesky old people living high on the pension hog or those freeloaders sucking up Medicaid, our budgets are not constitutionally, contractually, or federally protected. This is compounded by the fact we seem to be everybody’s second priority. Democrats tell us they love us and they’re going to give us the funding we need just as soon as they raise taxes. Republicans tell us they love us and they’re going to give us the funding we need just as soon as they cut all those social services. In a state where unconstitutional initiatives keep majority Democrats from governing with a majority and where a critical mass of Democrats often act like Republicans, this kind of love triangle can leave college folk twisting themselves into knots trying to be all things to all people. University presidents tend to feel like they’ve navigated the legislative Scylla and Charybdis just right when Republicans think they’re Democrats who lean right and Democrats think they’re Republicans who lean left.</p> <p>But now the jig is up.</p> <p>If our public universities are going to remain public, if the middle classes and below are going to continue to have the opportunities that come with a genuine college education, if the state is going to continue to have the economic development and social stability that comes from strong universities, then this state must raise more revenue. With nothing but dark economic clouds on the horizon, we can no longer continue to try to walk a political tightrope, thinking that if we don’t do anything to piss off anybody, then maybe somebody will give us some money.</p> <p>It is time for us to get off the fence and make full-throated arguments for tax reform and new revenue, including but not limited to the following:</p> <p>--Even if public universities weren’t going to benefit from increased revenue, it’s high time Washington’s tax policy joined at least the late twentieth century. We have the most regressive tax system in the country.</p> <p>--When some Democratic legislators say that they are unwilling to kill people so other people can go to college, they have a point. Capitalist economies without social safety nets should only exist in Dickens novels. The state budget has been so bad for so long that higher ed folks have started eying K-12 and social services as competitors for scraps and that’s a sure sign that we’re losing our way. We’ve taken to making the morally dubious argument that a dollar invested in higher ed makes more long term sense than a dollar invested in children’s health care or food for poor people. It’s time for us to stop that and start telling people that there should be two dollars.</p> <p>--Public sector jobs are still jobs. The demonization of public employees has been so relentless that you’d think they were just a bunch of thieves stealing our tax money. Actually, they’re cops, firefighters, teachers and other hard working professionals, thousands of whom have been laid off. This not only erodes the public infrastructure to dangerous levels, it also drives the unemployment rate up, because . . .</p> <p>…most of those private sector jobs ain’t coming back, taxes or no taxes. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have kept tax burdens on the well off unconscionably low in the hopes of spurring job creation. That hasn’t happened, because a variety of factors (mostly technology) have made it possible for companies to downsize and maintain or increase productivity. Insisting that rich people and corporations pay their fair share of taxes won’t kill jobs and isn’t class warfare, because...</p> <p>…to quote Elizabeth Warren, “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.”</p> <p>--Taxes don’t drive away business. Study after study, leaked internal memo after leaked internal memo have shown that taxes are not near the top of the list in corporate calculations about where to do business. Boeing is much more likely to leave because our public universities aren’t graduating enough engineers than they are because taxes went up a little bit to pay for those engineers.</p> <p>Here at the blog, we have often had the opportunity to share a beverage and conversation with revenue averse legislators, and we can say with sincerity that they are not like their comrades in the other Washington. For the most part, they are decent, thoughtful, and well-meaning people who are not simply trying to score political points. However committed they may be to smaller government and lower taxes, they aren’t likely to toss the university baby out with the tax bathwater just because we disagree about how to solve the budget crisis.</p> <p>So it’s time for everybody in Washington’s public university community to get off the fence. We need to say as loudly and as forcefully as we can that enough is enough. We cannot just continue to cut. We need more revenue. </p> <p> -- <p> web page: www.ufws.org<BR> blog: www.ufwsblog.org<BR> unsubscribe: http://www.ufws.org/mail/mail.cgi/u/ufww_news/</p>

UFWS Message, Hunter and the Hunted

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 19:33:00 GMT

<p><span style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; font-size: medium;" class="Apple-style-span"><span style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" class="Apple-style-span"> <p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Hunter and the Hunted</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">by Bill Lyne  <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a style="color: rgb(17, 65, 112);" target="_blank" href="http://www.ufwsblog.org/">www.ufwsblog.org</a></span></span></p> <p><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande','Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">So the House budget proposal was unveiled on Monday, and, well, it could have been worse.  Don’t get us wrong, here at the blog we still feel that tax loopholes should be on the table (giving money to out of state banks and private jet folks while people go hungry and die is, no matter how hard you squint, just wrong), that there ought to be a more serious and sustained effort to reform the goofiest tax system in the country, and that every proposed budget this year is just another step in the destruction of our crucial public infrastructure. </span></p> <div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-width: 0px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande','Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><img style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-width: 0px; float: right; width: 227px; min-height: 312px;" src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/r_hunter.png" alt="Image" /> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; outline-width: 0px;">But . . . given the local problem of creating a budget within ridiculous constraints, Rep. Ross Hunter and the House Dems did a remarkable job.  Obviously not everyone is going to buy into all the choices, but this budget has a coherence and clarity that we haven’t seen in a while. </p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; outline-width: 0px;">For our state universities, the House budget whacks $100 million more than the Governor’s proposal did.  But a tip of the blog hat to Representative Hunter and his colleagues for making the extent of the cuts clear.  You don’t have to dig into the murky footnotes to find how the details of pension adjustments and salary reductions add up to more than the advertised cut.  The full damage was right up front in the presentation that Representatives Hunter, Darneille, and Sullivan made at their press conference.  The slide showing the higher ed cuts had a big asterisk making it clear that the cut percentages included all the back of the book stuff. </p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; outline-width: 0px;">The other great thing that the House budget presentation did was make it clear that state spending and public services continue to shrink.  State spending per person is the lowest it’s been since 1986 and dropping.  Remember that the next time somebody tells you that state spending is out of control.</p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; outline-width: 0px;">And while state spending has been dropping steadily, spending on higher education has dropped precipitously.   With both the governor’s and the house budget proposals out now, the writing on the wall is pretty clear.  When the smoke clears on this year’s legislative session, state support to our public universities will have been cut by 50% or more in the last two biennia. </p> <a href="http://www.postsecondary.org/last12/224_211pg1_20.pdf" target="_blank"><img width="267" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-width: 0px; float: right; min-height: 142px;" src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/tm_quote.png" alt="Image" /></a> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; outline-width: 0px;">To understand the consequences of this disinvestment, we need only turn our eyes to Oskaloosa, Iowa, the home of Tom Mortenson, publisher of the newsletter Postsecondary Education Opportunity [<a style="color: rgb(114, 152, 132); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" href="http://www.postsecondary.org/last12/224_211pg1_20.pdf">link</a>] .  Since 1991, Mortenson’s newsletter has “relentlessly calculated, documented, and reported& rdquo; the consequences of state disinvestment in higher education over the last two decades.  Mortenson lists Washington as one of his “dumb, dumber, dumbest” states, for having recorded our poorest rates of investment in higher education over the last two fiscal years.  In FY 2010, we spent $5.48 per $1000 of personal income in this state on higher education.  That’s 63.7% below our peak of $15.53 in FY 1974.</p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; outline-width: 0px;">Perhaps the clearest consequence of the thirty-year choice that policy makers in Washington and other states have made to disinvest in public higher education has been the exacerbation of the gap between those who are born with stuff and those who have to work for it.  As Mortenson points out:</p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em 40px; padding: 0px; outline-width: 0px;"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline-width: 0px;">This decline in state investment in higher education has occurred during the Human Capital Era of the U.S. economy.  Since 1973 income and the welfare that income provides has been based almost entirely on educational attainment, particularly higher education.  Since 1973 the real incomes and living standards of people of all genders and races and ethnicities, families, households, cities, and states have been reallocated according to educational attainment.  Those with the m ost education have prospered and moved farther ahead, while those with the least education have suffered and fallen further behind.  Higher education has become the distinct line of demarcation between those moving forward and the rest moving backward in their incomes, health, wealth, and general welfare.   </em></p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; outline-width: 0px;">This race to the bottom will continue this year, no matter what budget is ultimately adopted.  The House budget proposal cuts between 3.2% and 5.4% from the total budgets of each of our universities and raises tuition by 11.5% to 13% just to keep those cuts from being worse. </p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; outline-width: 0px;">So, while the House budget writers did a good and thoughtful job, the bottom line is still that our students will be paying 11% to 13% more to get 3% to 5% less. </p> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; outline-width: 0px;">The organizing and education that members of the higher education community have done has made higher ed more of a priority for legislators.  But if we’re going to preserve the future of this state through the middle class expansion and economic, political and cultural development that access to high-quality, publicly supported universities brings, we still have a lot of work to do.</p> </div> </span></span></p> <p> -- <p> web page: www.ufws.org<BR> blog: www.ufwsblog.org<BR> unsubscribe: http://www.ufws.org/mail/mail.cgi/u/ufww_news/</p>

UFWS Message: Hunter and the Hunted

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 19:13:00 GMT

<p> <meta charset="utf-8" /></p> <p><span style="font-size: large; "><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span style="font-family: Arial; ">Hunter and the Hunted</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; ">  </span><span style="font-size: x-small; "><span style="font-family: Arial; ">by Bill Lyne   <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ufwsblog.org">www.ufwsblog.org</a></span></span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; ">So the House budget proposal was unveiled on Monday, and, well, it could have been worse.  Don’t get us wrong, here at the blog we still feel that tax loopholes should be on the table (giving money to out of state banks and private jet folks while people go hungry and die is, no matter how hard you squint, just wrong), that there ought to be a more serious and sustained effort to reform the goofiest tax system in the country, and that every proposed budget this year is just another step in the destruction of our crucial public infrastructure. </span></p> <p> <meta charset="utf-8"> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /><img alt="Image" class="imgp_img" data-cke-saved-src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/r_hunter.png" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; float: right; width: 227px; height: 312px; " src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/r_hunter.png" /> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">But . . . given the local problem of creating a budget within ridiculous constraints, Rep. Ross Hunter and the House Dems did a remarkable job.  Obviously not everyone is going to buy into all the choices, but this budget has a coherence and clarity that we haven’t seen in a while. </p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">For our state universities, the House budget whacks $100 million more than the Governor’s proposal did.  But a tip of the blog hat to Representative Hunter and his colleagues for making the extent of the cuts clear.  You don’t have to dig into the murky footnotes to find how the details of pension adjustments and salary reductions add up to more than the advertised cut.  The full damage was right up front in the presentation that Representatives Hunter, Darneille, and Sullivan made at their press conference.  The slide showing the higher ed cuts had a big asterisk making it clear that the cut percentages included all the back of the book stuff. </p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">The other great thing that the House budget presentation did was make it clear that state spending and public services continue to shrink.  State spending per person is the lowest it’s been since 1986 and dropping.  Remember that the next time somebody tells you that state spending is out of control.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">And while state spending has been dropping steadily, spending on higher education has dropped precipitously.   With both the governor’s and the house budget proposals out now, the writing on the wall is pretty clear.  When the smoke clears on this year’s legislative session, state support to our public universities will have been cut by 50% or more in the last two biennia. </p> <img alt="Image" class="imgp_img" data-cke-saved-src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/tm_quote.png" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; float: right; width: 267px; height: 142px; " src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/tm_quote.png" /> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">To understand the consequences of this disinvestment, we need only turn our eyes to Oskaloosa, Iowa, the home of Tom Mortenson, publisher of the newsletter Postsecondary Education Opportunity [<a data-cke-saved-href="http://www.postsecondary.org/last12/224_211pg1_20.pdf" target="_blank" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(114, 152, 132); " href="http://www.postsecondary.org/last12/224_211pg1_20.pdf">link</a>] .  Since 1991, Mortenson’s newsletter has “relentlessly calculated, documented, and reported& rdquo; the consequences of state disinvestment in higher education over the last two decades.  Mortenson lists Washington as one of his “dumb, dumber, dumbest” states, for having recorded our poorest rates of investment in higher education over the last two fiscal years.  In FY 2010, we spent $5.48 per $1000 of personal income in this state on higher education.  That’s 63.7% below our peak of $15.53 in FY 1974.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Perhaps the clearest consequence of the thirty-year choice that policy makers in Washington and other states have made to disinvest in public higher education has been the exacerbation of the gap between those who are born with stuff and those who have to work for it.  As Mortenson points out:</p> <p class="rteindent1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "><em style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">This decline in state investment in higher education has occurred during the Human Capital Era of the U.S. economy.  Since 1973 income and the welfare that income provides has been based almost entirely on educational attainment, particularly higher education.  Since 1973 the real incomes and living standards of people of all genders and races and ethnicities, families, households, cities, and states have been reallocated according to educational attainment.  Those with the m ost education have prospered and moved farther ahead, while those with the least education have suffered and fallen further behind.  Higher education has become the distinct line of demarcation between those moving forward and the rest moving backward in their incomes, health, wealth, and general welfare.   </em></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">This race to the bottom will continue this year, no matter what budget is ultimately adopted.  The House budget proposal cuts between 3.2% and 5.4% from the total budgets of each of our universities and raises tuition by 11.5% to 13% just to keep those cuts from being worse. </p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">So, while the House budget writers did a good and thoughtful job, the bottom line is still that our students will be paying 11% to 13% more to get 3% to 5% less. </p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">The organizing and education that members of the higher education community have done has made higher ed more of a priority for legislators.  But if we’re going to preserve the future of this state through the middle class expansion and economic, political and cultural development that access to high-quality, publicly supported universities brings, we still have a lot of work to do. </p> </div> </meta> </p> <p> </p> <p> -- <p> web page: www.ufws.org<BR> blog: www.ufwsblog.org<BR> unsubscribe: http://www.ufws.org/mail/mail.cgi/u/ufww_news/</p>

UFWS Message, Whole Lotta Countin� Goin� On

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 19:02:00 GMT

<div> <meta charset="utf-8"> <h2 class="node-title" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.1; font-size: 1.3em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; ">Whole Lotta Countin’ Goin’ On    by Bill Lyne    <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ufwsblog.org">www.ufwsblog.org</a> </h2> </meta> </div> <p> <meta charset="utf-8"> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">At the end of the day, politics is about counting.  Here in Washington, for example, folks in Olympia and beyond are counting, counting, and recounting.  The house and senate budget writers at the eye of the storm are counting how many dollars they’re going to cut from where.  Every time they do a new budget scenario, they then go count how many of their colleagues will vote for which version.  Those people in turn start counting what their vote will cost them in constituent votes and campaign donations.  One of the keys to democracy lies in the fact that those who count most clearly usually end up running things. </p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">This year, one particular count has gone up dramatically.  The legislator bromide that no one ever hears from anybody about universities is no longer true.  Thanks to the efforts of a whole variety of groups, including the Washington Student Association, the College Promise Coalition, Western Advocates, UW Impact, the Public School Employees, the Independent Colleges of Washington, and the higher ed members at SEIU, legislators have been hearing from alumni, students, parents, faculty, and staff about the need to save our public universities. </p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "> <div><span style="font-size: small; "><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); "><strong>So far, legislators have received:</strong></span></span></div> <div style="margin-left: 40px; "><span style="font-size: small; "><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); "><strong> </strong></span></span></div> <div style="margin-left: 40px; "><span style="font-size: small; "><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); "><strong>--over 5,000 emails </strong></span></span></div> <div style="margin-left: 40px; "><span style="font-size: small; "><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); "><strong> </strong></span></span></div> <div style="margin-left: 40px; "><span style="font-size: small; "><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); "><strong>--over 1000 phone calls</strong></span></span></div> <div style="margin-left: 40px; "><span style="font-size: small; "><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); "><strong> </strong></span></span></div> <div style="margin-left: 40px; "><span style="font-size: small; "><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); "><strong>--over 500 letters</strong></span></span></div> <div style="margin-left: 40px; "><span style="font-size: small; "><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); "><strong> </strong></span></span></div> <div style="margin-left: 40px; "><span style="font-size: small; "><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0); "><strong>--over 1200 signatures on petitions</strong></span></span></div> </p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">There have also been community conversations and town hall meetings all over the state focused on higher education.  People across the state are realizing that we can’t decimate the state support for public universities and expect them to survive, and they’re letting our representatives know that.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Legislators will, of course have to weigh the choices they make about universities against their other political and ideological commitments.  But here at the blog, we’re feeling pretty certain that neither the issue nor the coalitions that have been built around it are going away. </p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">For those faithful blog readers who haven’t already joined us, sign up now:</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">College Promise Coalition-- <a data-cke-saved-href="http://www.collegepromisewa.com" target="_blank" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(114, 152, 132); " href="http://www.collegepromisewa.com/">www.collegepromisewa.com</a></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Western Advocates-- <a data-cke-saved-href="http://www.wwuadvocates.org" target="_blank" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(114, 152, 132); " href="http://www.wwuadvocates.org/">www.wwuadvocates.org</a></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">UW Impact-- <a data-cke-saved-href="http://www.uwimpact.org" target="_blank" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(114, 152, 132); " href="http://www.uwimpact.org/">www.uwimpact.org</a></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">FYI PAC-- <a data-cke-saved-href="http://www.fyipac.org" target="_blank" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(114, 152, 132); " href="http://www.fyipac.org/">www.fyipac.org</a></p> </div> </meta> Washington’s public universities have been neglected and underfunded for over thirty years.  The campaign to keep high quality public four year education accessible has just begun.      </p> <p> -- <p> web page: www.ufws.org<BR> blog: www.ufwsblog.org<BR> unsubscribe: http://www.ufws.org/mail/mail.cgi/u/ufww_news/</p>

UFWS Message, All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 20:09:00 GMT

<p><strong>All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go</strong>     <span style="font-size: x-small;">by Bill Lyne  www.ufwsblog.org</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Imagine winning an all-expense paid trip to Disneyland and then getting there only to find that half the rides have been closed.<br /> <br /> Last Wednesday, the House Higher Education Committee heard representatives from the state universities testify about the impact of potential budget reductions. It was a parade of university presidents and trustees talking about the carnage of thousands of students turned away, thousands of classes cut, hundreds of jobs lost, skyrocketing tuition, longer time to graduation, and the elimination of whole programs and colleges.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><img style="float: right; width: 237px; height: 224px;" src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/no_rides.gif" data-cke-saved-src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/no_rides.gif" class="imgp_img" alt="Image" /></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">On Thursday, the picture brightened a little bit, when the committee heard testimony from the HEC Board about the impacts of budget reductions on student financial aid. Washington State ranks third in the nation in need-based financial aid for students. That’s something we should be proud of. Even in hard times, the state has remained committed to helping needy students have a shot at college. Governor Gregoire’s proposed budget, which cuts another $380 million from the university budgets, actually adds $91 million to the State Need Grant to try to keep up with the inevitable tuition increases. The 2010 supplemental budget that the legislature recently passed cuts $25 million from the State Need Grant, but this will not reduce any aid. The money will be replaced by funds from the university budgets.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">Those two days of testimony represent the right hand gives, left hand takes away dynamic of the zero sum game of higher education in Washington state. While we have been committed, with well above average financial aid and below average tuition, to making sure that students have a shot at college, we have been not so committed to making sure that our universities are able to provide the kind of education those students deserve.<br /> <br /> At the same time that Washington ranks in the top five in need-based student financial aid, we are in the bottom five in funding for our state universities. The budget for financial aid is more than the budgets of Western Washington University, Eastern Washington University, Central Washington University, and the Evergreen State College put together.<br /> <br /> Next year, over 70,000 students will receive assistance from the State Need Grant. If they attend one of our state universities, they will pay more to get less, they will have fewer classes to choose from, the classes they can choose will be much larger, they will have less access to their professors, and some programs will simply not exist anymore.<br /> <br /> It’ll be like Disneyland without Pirates of the Caribbean and the Matterhorn.</span></p> <p> -- <p> web page: www.ufws.org<BR> blog: www.ufwsblog.org<BR> unsubscribe: http://www.ufws.org/mail/mail.cgi/u/ufww_news/</p>

UFWS Message, 1795

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 04:27:00 GMT

<div><strong><span style="font-size: large; "><span style="font-family: Arial; ">1795</span></span></strong></div> <div><span style="font-size: x-small; "><span style="font-family: Arial; ">by Bill Lyne</span></span><span style="font-size: smaller; "><span style="font-family: Arial; ">   </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; "><span style="font-size: small; "><a target="_blank" href="http://www.ufwsblog.org"><span style="font-size: smaller; ">www.ufwsblog.org</span></a></span></span></div> <div> </div> <p> <meta charset="utf-8" /></p> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Public, state supported university education began in the United States in 1795, when the University of North Carolina first admitted students.  So it seems only appropriate that the bill most likely to keep public universities public in Washington is SHB 1795.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "><img alt="Image" class="imgp_img" data-cke-saved-src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/1795.gif" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; float: right; width: 222px; height: 90px; " src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/1795.gif" /></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">We’ve spoken before about 1795 here at the blog.  It’s the Higher Education Opportunity Act, introduced by Representative Reuven Carlyle (and don’t think it’s not killing us to be kissing Reuven’s ass again—here’s hoping he does something dumb next week that we can make fun of).  This bill is the best hope in this legislative session for saving accessible, affordable, high quality public universities in Washington.  SHB 1795 does several things:</p> <p class="rteindent1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "><strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">1.</strong> It recognizes the reality of the state funding situation and grants tuition-setting authority to the state universities beginning in the Fall of 2011.</p> <p class="rteindent1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "><strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">2.</strong> It then recognizes the obligation of the state to fund public universities and rescinds tuition-setting authority after four years.  In SHB 1795, tuition-setting authority is a temporary measure designed to weather a crisis.  The bill would force the legislature to fully reconsider its failure to appropriately fund higher education after four years.  It does not allow our universities to drift further and further into privatization through legislative ine rtia.</p> <p class="rteindent1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "><strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">3.</strong> SHB 1795 demands that the universities address the plight of middle class students who will be most squeezed by rising tuition.  This is crucial—the growth and prosperity of the American middle class in the 20th century was fueled by public state universities.  In the face of a desperate economic situation, SHB 1795 works to come up with a formula that will keep public universities both public and universities.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Perhaps the best thing about SHB 1795 is that it is the product of some very hard work by a broad coalition brought together by Rep. Carlyle and Rep. Larry Seaquist, chair of the House Higher Education Committee.  Students, faculty, staff, all six university presidents, and even Republicans (with a special shout out to Rep. Larry Haler) were all invited to the table and all worked hard on the bill.  The representatives from the Washington Student Association have been especially courageous in working on SHB 1795. </p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">When it comes time to vote, both in the House Ways and Means Committee and on the House floor, members would do well to recognize the broad support that SHB 1795 has across all parts of the higher education community.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">1666 was the year of the Great Fire of London and it is also the number of the other bill that addresses tuition-setting authority and financial aid for public universities.  At first blush, SHB 1795 and SHB 1666 seem relatively similar.  But a closer look shows that SHB 1666 essentially gives up on the idea of high quality public universities in Washington. </p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">SHB 1666 was created by the Governor’s Task Force on Higher Education Funding, which was dominated by business elites.  We recognize that from time to time here at the blog we have been a little hard on our brothers and sisters who toil in the  executive suites, so we’d like to take this opportunity to thank those folks for the work they put in on the Task Force and for their genuine interest in university education. </p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "><img alt="Image" class="imgp_img" data-cke-saved-src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/1666.gif" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; float: right; width: 233px; height: 71px; " src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/1666.gif" /></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "><strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">But SHB 1666 is not the answer.</strong>  It gives open-ended tuition-setting authority to the universities and it only addresses financial aid by creating a private endowment (with a tax credit kick back to corporations) that will never come close to meeting the needs of tens of thousands of Washington’s students.  This is a formula for the privatization of our public universities.  And the private university model is one that includes a lot of rich kids and enough working class and u p-from-poverty students (supported by federal financial aid and the sort of private philanthropy that 1666 proposes) to make the brochures look “diverse.”  Private universities do not create nor do they nourish the broad middle class that makes for a strong economy and a stable democracy.</p> </div> <p> <meta charset="utf-8" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; ">Our public universities are already on the brink, with less than half of our funding coming from the state.  If we want to hold out any hope for public universities in Washington’s future, the legislature should pass Substitute House Bill 1795.</span></p> <p> <meta charset="utf-8" /></p> <p> </p> <p> -- <p> web page: www.ufws.org<BR> blog: www.ufwsblog.org<BR> unsubscribe: http://www.ufws.org/mail/mail.cgi/u/ufww_news/</p>

UFWS Message, The HEC Board Blues

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:17:00 GMT

<div><span style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">The HEC Board Blues</span></span></div> <div><span style="font-family: Arial; "><span style="font-size: small; ">by William Lyne </span></span><span style="font-size: small; "><a href="http://www.ufwsblog.org"><span style="font-family: Arial; ">www.ufwsblog.org</span></a></span></div> <p> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> <title></title> <meta name="Generator" content="Cocoa HTML Writer" /> <meta name="CocoaVersion" content="1038.35" /><style type="text/css"><span style="font-size: small; "> p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica} </span></style></p> <div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; ">Here at the blog, we are unabashed admirers of State Senator Scott White, not just because he is such a handsome and charming guy, but also because he is perhaps Olympia’s staunchest supporter of our state’s public universities. </span></div> <p> <meta charset="utf-8"> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "><img alt="Image" class="imgp_img" data-cke-saved-src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/thumbs/scottwhite.jpg" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; float: right; " src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/thumbs/scottwhite.jpg" /></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Senator White recently introduced SB 5182, which would eliminate the Higher Education Coordinating Board.  The bill passed out of the Senate Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee and will get a hearing in the Senate Ways and Means Committee on Thursday.</p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">If the initial hearing was a harbinger of things to come, the Ways and Means Committee will hear from a parade of past and present HEC Board members and staff who will talk about the solid policy and oversight work that the HEC Board gives to the state.  But the more interesting part of the testimony will be the pious subtext about the value of a courageous “citizen” board that protects students, the legislature, and the governor from the lying, greedy miscreants who work at universities. </p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Setting aside for a moment our umbrage at the implication that those of us at universities aren’t citizens, we think that the good senators on Ways and Means would do well to pay attention to that subtext.  Senator White’s bill responds to the complete disconnect that has developed between the HEC Board and the universities.  For the most part, the HEC </p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">Board lives in a theoretical world of a master plan that bears no relationship to the actual situation on the ground at our universities.  And, right or wrong, the people at universities feel that the HEC Board regularly fails to even minimally stick up for us, sometimes even to the point of joining the chorus that keeps insisting that we can continue to do more for less. </p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; ">So we hope that the senators ask some basic questions about the genuine value that the HEC Board adds to one of the best university systems in the country. </p> </div> </meta> And it would be nice if someone from the HEC Board could admit, even grudgingly, that university faculty and staff occasionally care about students, too. </p> <p> -- <p> web page: www.ufws.org<BR> blog: www.ufwsblog.org<BR> unsubscribe: http://www.ufws.org/mail/mail.cgi/u/ufww_news/</p>

UFWS Message, Where's Tim Eyman When You Need Him?

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 00:56:00 GMT

<p> </p> <p> <meta charset="utf-8" /></p> <p> <meta charset="utf-8"> <div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; "> <meta charset="utf-8" /><strong><span style="font-size: large; ">Where's Tim Eyman When You Need Him?</span></strong><br /> <span style="font-size: smaller; ">by Bill Lyne www.ufwsblog.org</span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; font-size: 18.72px; "><span style="font-size: smaller; ">The one sure thing in Olympia this year is that nobody wants to take the rap for the way that the budget is going to turn out. Republicans picked up some seats in the last election and the welcome present they’re getting from Democrats is a commitment to “bipartisan” budget proposals.</span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; font-size: 18.72px; "><span style="font-size: smaller; ">So when the State Senate budget proposal dropped on Wednesday, Democrats all over Olympia were quick to point out that the latest plan to plunder our state universities was a Republican idea.</span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; font-size: 18.72px; "><span style="font-size: smaller; ">Imagine going to a restaurant, paying for your meal and getting no food. That’s what the senate budget proposal does to our students.</span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; font-size: 18.72px; "><span style="font-size: smaller; "><img alt="Image" class="imgp_img" _cke_saved_src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/jzarelli_2.png" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; float: right; width: 187px; height: 281px; " src="http://ufws.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/1/jzarelli_2.png" /></span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; font-size: 18.72px; "><span style="font-size: smaller; ">This plan, apparently brought forward by Senator Joseph Zarelli, breaks creative new ground in trying to fill the state budget hole. The proposed Senate Budget takes $25 million of tuition that our students have paid to state universities and uses it to backfill state obligations to financial aid.</span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; font-size: 18.72px; "><span style="font-size: smaller; ">Here at the blog, we are obviously not as sophisticated or nuanced in our thinking as Senator Zarelli and his constituents from Clark and Cowlitz counties, but in our neighborhood we would call that a tax (some of the surlier residents of our neighborhood might even call it theft). But of course it can’t be a tax, because we all know that all of our state’s republicans would rather stick pins in their eyes than vote for a new tax.</span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; font-size: 18.72px; "><span style="font-size: smaller; ">Tuition is the money that students pay to receive the quality education that our state universities provide. Every dime of that money should go to their education.</span></p> <p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; outline-width: 0px; outline-style: initial; outline-color: initial; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; line-height: 19px; font-size: 18.72px; "><span style="font-size: smaller; ">And even though this might be a Republican plan, some of the Democrats are going to vote for it. Apparently stealing from students and their parents is also a bipartisan idea.</span></p> <p> </p> </div> </meta> </p> <p> -- <p> web page: www.ufws.org<BR> blog: www.ufwsblog.org<BR> unsubscribe: http://www.ufws.org/mail/mail.cgi/u/ufww_news/</p>