The State Board for Community and Technical Colleges will vote on a proposed 12 percent average increase for community college tuition Thursday.
The board, which oversees the state’s 34 community and technical colleges — including Peninsula College, which has campuses in Port Angeles, Port Townsend and Forks — raised tuition last year by 13 percent for full-time students and 11 percent for part-timers.
The board will vote on this year’s rates when it meets at Moses Lake Wednesday and Thursday. The item is scheduled for Thursday.
The proposal is the same as last year: a 12 percent average increase translated to 13 percent for full-timers and 11 percent for part-timers.
Peninsula College interim President Brinton Sprague had told the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce in early April that the college expected to increase tuition by 12 percent in the 2012-13 school year.
Sprague said that in the past few years, higher education has seen a loss of 22 percent of its state funding.
The Legislature last year put tuition increases of up to 16 percent into the state’s two-year budget to help make up for another two years of decreases in state dollars going to state universities.
This year’s Legislature decided not to increase that figure, but lawmakers also didn’t make it disappear.
Washington State University’s board of regents voted Friday to raise tuition 16 percent for the second year in a row, raising tuition at the four-year college to $10,874 for in-state undergraduates next school year.
With mandatory fees added in, the bill will come to about $11,735.
A University of Washington vote is expected in June on a 16 percent increase.
Tuition there was raised 20 percent last year.
A 16 percent hike, which translates to $1,564, would make in-state tuition $11,305 for the 2012-13 school year.
With mandatory fees, students will pay $12,385.
In-state tuition at Evergreen and Central will go up 14 percent this fall. Tuition at Eastern is going up 11 percent.
Western will have a second year of 16 percent tuition hikes.
Lawmakers also put more money into financial aid and set up a new fund to encourage corporations to support student scholarships through the Washington Opportunity Scholarship program.
In-state tuition has been on a steep increase for the past four years, but college officials are quick to point out Washington has not caught up with comparable universities from other states.
For example, California’s state universities charge around $13,000 a year in tuition and mandatory fees.