The Capitol building was filled with dairy farmers and industry advocates to celebrate Dairy Day Wednesday, commemorated with the sweet taste of Ferdinand’s Grabbers. Sponsored by the Washington State Dairy Products Commission and in coordination with the Washington State Dairy Federation, members and staff from the Commission and Federation along with Dairy Women and county […]
Dozens of WSU students are swarming the state Capitol grounds today to press their priorities as part of the annual Coug Day at the Capitol. Held remotely for the past two years, students from five WSU campuses returned in force before dawn this morning. Agenda items for a series of meetings with legislators include requests […]
Legislation that would allow Washington’s public universities to set tuition sooner was unanimously moved out of Senate Higher Education committee last week and is now in the Rules Committee awaiting a floor vote. Senate Bill 5079, supported by WSU, would require the Office of Financial Management to communicate the maximum allowable increase in tuition under […]
WSU President Kirk Schulz visited with legislators in Olympia last week, advocating for the institution’s top legislative priorities. Over three days, Schulz met with over two dozen legislators discussing employee compensation, the university’s social work and public health degree proposals, nursing reaccreditation efforts, and multiple building projects. You can find WSU’s 2023 legislative agenda here. With the […]
Metrics depicting the impacts of the cost of education at WSU have improved considerably since 2014, updated figures show. The Great Recession not only ripped through university budgets, it also left an unprecedented mark on affordability. Tuition at WSU —assumed by the Legislature in its cuts-laden budgets — jumped by 75 percent over four years […]
Washington State University has identified cost-of-living adjustments for faculty, staff and graduate students as its top priority in advance of the 2023 legislative session and has submitted a number of other requests to support high demand degree production and the university’s physical infrastructure. You can find WSU’s 2023 legislative agenda here. WSU has requested $34.5 […]
The Washington State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council released its quarterly revenue forecast this afternoon, which projects where state revenues are potentially heading as state lawmakers get ready to reconvene for the 2023 legislative session in January. In the current 2021-23 biennial budget, forecasters projected revenues to increase by $762 million above their most recent […]
Following September’s revenue forecast which projected a shrinking of the upcoming 2023-25 biennial budget, state tax collections for the month of September came in slightly higher than expected. State revenues for the period of September 11th to October 10th came in $126 million or 6.3 percent higher than expected in last month’s forecast, according to […]
While projected revenues for the current 2021-23 state biennial budget were increased, projections from the Washington State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council released this afternoon lowered expected collections by $495 million in the 2023-25 biennium. The Council’s forecast projects revenues in the current biennium to increase by about $43 million, bolstering the underlying budget to […]
Facing escalating costs for construction materials, WSU has received $2.2 million in requested funding announced this week by the state’s budget office to mitigate this unanticipated increase associated with the construction of the Life Sciences Building on the WSU Vancouver campus. The building will house labs and lecture spaces primarily for STEM-disciplines and was first […]