Washington Votes Forum

Died in Senate K-12 Education Committee - or so it appears - as NO committee action on the bill had been take before 2/17/2010.

This bill would have the pracitical effect of trippling ( 300% increase of ) the tuition cost for students attending college through the running start program.

There is no provisions for waiver of these increases for students who can not afford them.

Since this is a High School program, low income students will have NO, repeat NO, federal aid for low income college students available to them.

The alternative would be for the students to stay in the High Schools at no cost to the student but with increased costs at the high school, additional overcrowding at the high school level and reduced revenue for the Community Colleges.

The economic impact annalysis simply ignores the negative impacts entirely which results in the false impression of 7 to 15 million savings to the budget.

Ten percent of the enrollment in many community colleges are running start students.

Died in Senate K-12 Education Committee - or so it appears - as NO committee action on the bill had been take before 2/17/2010.

Died in Senate K-12 Education Committee - or so it appears - as NO committee action on the bill had been take before 2/17/2010.

This proposed bill - as currently written - does NOT allow the waiver of the massive tuition increase for low income students.

Some official analysises of this proposed bill assume a fee waiver in existing law for low income students would also apply to proposed new student charges for tuition, which is exactly wrong based on the current text of the proposed bill.

Specifically the Community College analysis of this Senate Bill 6655 states the tuition increase is waivable for low income students, which is wrong .

Current law DOES allow waiver of per credit fees and per student fees for low income students, howver, current law probhibits running start student from being charged any tuition - since the high school already paid it, and therefor a low income tuition waiver is not an issue under existing law..

Under current law Running Start students do NOT pay any tuition - ONLY fees and costs of BOOKs.

The proposed law continues the low income waiver for Fees ONLY.

The proposed law requires the student to pay a substantial portion of the full tuition charged not running start students - but DOES NOT, repeat NOT,  allow the college to waive this for low income students.

Colleges currently charge both per credit and per student fees in addition to per credit tuition, however, under current law running start students are prohibited by law from being charged per credit tuition, so a low income waiver of tuition was never an issue.

Died in Senate K-12 Education Committee - or so it appears - as NO committee action on the bill had been take before 2/17/2010.

Died in Senate K-12 Education Committee - or so it appears - as NO committee action on the bill had been take before 2/17/2010.