ASWSU’s Legislative Affairs branch sent out a message Feb. 27 encouraging students to advocate for codifying the Washington College Grant ahead of its July 2025 expiration date.
The Grant gives eligible in-state students full or partial coverage depending on their financial situations, said Legislative Affairs Director Collin Bannister.
“[The grant is] one of the most important forms of financial aid for students in the state of Washington,” said Bhargav Iyer, Legislative Affairs deputy director.
At WSU, about 35% of students are covered by the grant and should it go away, this loss in aid would be pretty devastating, particularly for those 55%-65% below the median family income, Bannister said. To protect the student body, ASWSU has been advocating on its behalf to state legislators and lawmakers.
“The state is in a pretty interesting deficit situation right now and with that in mind we’re just really trying to emphasize that financial aid is not the thing to cut right now,” Bannister said. “Financial aid is investing in our state, our future and our economy. Students are not going to be able to afford to go to school if you pull their financial aid away from them.”
Washington state’s deficit is quite deep and seeing as how the Washington College Grant is not one of the programs entitled to mandatory funding, it faces potential cuts as it is not codified, Iyer said.
This is particularly pressing for students at state universities like WSU as it demonstrates how education funds are at risk on the state and the federal level. This could potentially cause more tuition hikes, Bannister said.
“WSU and our other state colleges are losing a lot of federal dollars and now they’re looking at state funding getting cut too,” he said. “The other part of that is that there have been discussions with some lawmakers about raising tuition to make up for that loss of state dollars, so that is something that would affect every student, regardless of their financial status.”
Moves also being taken at the federal level are highly concerning for how they put higher education under threat and under fire as its funds are essentially being held hostage, Iyer said.
All in all, students will likely be feeling the effects of these issues directly, through tuition increases and decreased aid, as well as indirectly, should university resources and staff also face cuts. WSU’s fluctuating enrollment rates may also factor into this as decreased enrollment has already caused the university to increase tuition to make up the difference, Bannister said.
When working with students, the response has been overwhelmingly supportive, especially as 1,359 students engaged with the link ASWSU sent out, Iyer said. While the same can be said for those in Olympia, more concern should be given to their actions aside from just verbal support.
“Usually in a budget deficit, something has to go and the College Grant, unfortunately, is near the top of that list. Higher education tends to go first before anything else,” he said. “We have the nation’s finest financial aid program and I’m sure that they’d like to keep it that way and I think the actions they will take down the road will reflect that, hopefully.”
While students may be rightfully concerned about this, they are also encouraged to act and take advantage of the resources available to them, Iyer said.
“There are avenues you can take to make sure this does get passed. You might be concerned, [so] reach out to those agencies and make your voice heard. We’re here for you, we’re here for students,” he said. “We’d like for other people who are engaged and motivated to come and hopefully we can spark that conversation and get going from there.”
Students who wish to get involved with the efforts of ASWSU’s Legislative Affairs are encouraged to reach out at [email protected].
