Going into the legislative session, one of our primary goals was to protect the state funding increase the Legislature provided last session for the 2013–15 biennium. Our funding was largely protected, with some small but important additional investments in key areas, a $1 million permanent allocation to fund core laboratory expenses in our Institute for Protein Design, and one-time funding of $400,000 to examine the feasibility of bringing legal education back to Tacoma at the UW Tacoma campus. We were also able to protect current ongoing projects funded by the state’s Life Sciences Discovery Fund, though the program itself is slated to be eliminated after the current contracts have ended.
Preserving funding in our budget at its current level importantly enables us to keep resident undergraduate tuition at its current rate and for the second year in a row with no tuition increase while moving forward on reinvestments in compensation and academic services.
Other important legislation affecting education that we strongly supported included the passage of the Real Hope Act, which for the first time makes state financial aid available to low-income undocumented students who were brought to this country by their parents and have grown up here. This exceptional pool of talented students will now have—as the name of the legislation suggests—real hope to become even greater contributors to our community and world.
Also important to note was the Legislature’s passage of a higher education efficiencies bill. The bill provides our state colleges and universities with additional flexibility in several administrative areas, allowing us to operate more effectively and efficiently. It is estimated to save the University of Washington more than $700,000 annually.
Many thanks to all our dedicated students, faculty, staff and alumni across all three campuses who stayed active and engaged on behalf of the UW during this legislative session. I visited Olympia multiple times over the course of 60 days, and each time I witnessed the positive impact of your hard work and advocacy on behalf of the University.
Also, I want to give special acknowledgment to our UW ’14 class of legislative interns (shown below). It was a privilege to meet and get to know you. I appreciate your commitment to public service and wish you well as you complete your UW studies!
