While students across the state enjoyed the final few days of their winter break, a state task force took the first steps in another attempt to oblige students to pay more for the same instruction. On Jan. 3, the task force released their suggestion that colleges should be given tuition-setting power to make up for the waning state funding. If the legislature follows this proposal, they will have solved the budget crisis by transferring their accounting woes to the students of this state.

The state task force, composed mostly of business leaders who hardly have to worry about college costs, made their decision under the belief it would help increase the number of graduates produced by our state. By giving colleges the power to set tuition rates, the relatively low tuition we enjoy will vanish in a few years.

The Seattle Times reports the task force intends to offset the economic impact on low to middle income families by establishing a financial aid endowment. This endowment is little more than a distraction put forth by this task force to explain away their decision. The fact of the matter is the public would rather hear about the creation of a financial endowment than a decision to allow significant increases in tuition. This endowment would do little more than create an opportunity for a nice human interest piece while the rest of the student body shells out. As it is now, the legislature restricts the amount our higher education institutions can raise tuition rates, traditionally limiting these institutions to raising it no higher than 14 percent each year. As funding is cut, the temptation to raise tuition increases, causing students to take on the state’s debt.

Allowing colleges and universities to set their own prices creates a situation similar to what occurred in California. Near the end of 2009, the University of California Board of Regents raised undergraduate tuition a whopping 32 percent for all campuses, according to the New York Times.

Several Washington universities made Kiplinger’s 100 Best Values in Public Colleges list out of a pool of nearly 500 institutions. WSU just barely made the cut at number 98. Western Washington University and Evergreen State College cruised in at the mid fifties while the University of Washington led the pack at no. 10. If we allow our institutions to have the opportunity to jack up the price, our state is liable to slip right off this list — joining the ranks of Wyoming and West Virginia, where no schools made the cut.

The administration and legislature will surely explain in countless ways why the higher education institutions are trustworthy – just as I am sure someone did in California. Our state has some of the most reasonably priced schooling in the nation. This should be celebrated and protected, not looked at with hungry eyes as a source of an quick, easy budget fix. These are hard times, but that does not make the simple answer the right one. Billions have already been cut from higher education funding; it is time for the legislature to look elsewhere to repair their mistakes.