Colleges’ tuition plans in limbo

SEATTLE – Students heading off to college in Washington next fall will have to wait awhile to find out how much tuition they’ll be paying.

Since the Legislature went home without finishing the state budget, no one is sure whether Washington students will be getting a tuition increase, a cut, or neither. All three ideas have been proposed this year.

If you go to the University of Washington or Washington State University, tuition and mandatory fees already add up to nearly $13,000 a year, so plus or minus $390 may not seem like a lot to individual students or their parents.

But students aren’t the only ones waiting for a decision from the Legislature. The state’s college and universities are also on hold.

They can’t finish putting together their budgets and setting tuition for next year until the Legislature finishes its work. Depending on the choices lawmakers make when they return to Olympia soon, universities are waiting to hear whether they’ll get millions more from the state this year and next.

Associated Press