Budget funds tuition cut, med school

Legislative leaders today introduced and then swiftly passed a compromise operating budget for the next two years that will cut tuition at Washington State University while funding academic expansion at Everett and the medical school the university hopes to establish in Spokane.

The final agreement, embodied in Senate Bill 6052, was approved by the Senate 38-10 and then the House 90-8. You can find the agreement here.

It fully funds a historic tuition reduction of 5 percent for resident undergraduates this fall and an additional 10 percent in the fall of 2016 by replacing lost tuition revenue with new state appropriation.

It also funds WSU’s request for $2.5 million to support the development of a new community based medical school at its health sciences campus in Spokane and provides $2.4 million to bring software engineering and data analytics programs to the Everett University Center.

Funding also is provided to bring an electrical engineering program to Olympic College in Bremerton, where WSU already has a thriving mechanical engineering program.

An agreement on a two year capital budget is expected to be unveiled Tuesday.