Opportunity is intangible, so it’s hard to see it vanishing. But sometimes the loss comes into clear focus.
It’s been painfully visible at the University of Washington this month as the school has been forced to deny acceptance to 325 students who would – with enough state funding – have otherwise been admitted for spring quarter.
According to UW Admissions Director Philip Ballinger, almost all the affected students were trying to transfer from other schools. He told the Seattle Times that two-thirds of spring transfers typically come from community colleges.
That hurts. Washington provides its citizens less opportunity to enter four-year colleges than most other states. The state’s large system of community colleges is supposed to make up the difference by getting students through their first two years and then allowing them into an affordable public university.
It hasn’t worked out that way for decades, because the Legislature has not funded enough enrollment at four-year schools. The University of Washington each year rejects thousands of qualified applicants who could thrive academically on the campus.
But it’s especially appalling to see what’s happening now: community college students finishing their first two years with academic records strong enough to clear a bar that’s already excessively high, then still getting turned away. Fortunately, the UW is still taking spring transfers at its Tacoma and Bothell campuses.
With a state revenue shortfall now verging on $6 billion, any call for protecting a state program sounds like special pleading. The shortfall is so staggering that lawmakers will have to make some cuts in higher education and every other corner of the budget.
But any major reduction in college funding will come at a high price.
Washington’s future hinges on a healthy higher education system. Its economy depends on skilled workers and creative, well-educated innovators. Its high school graduates deserve a fighting chance to become those skilled workers and innovators.
We’re afraid that the rejection of those 325 would-be transfer students is just a harbinger of what could happen in the next biennium’s hard-times budget.
We can’t presume to tell the Legislature what else to cut more deeply in order to preserve opportunity for individuals and the state economy. But as lawmakers squeeze the higher education system, they must never forget that they are feeding the state its own seed corn.
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