2.3.16

Suggested lead:   There may not be a free lunch, but a new bill in the Washington Legislature could make a free college degree less of a pipe dream. Dan Frizzell has that story.

Wrap (:88 total):  The numbers are clear:  That bachelor's degree is worth good money.  College graduates can expect to pull in about twenty thousand dollars a year more than people with some college but no degree, even if they came with a whisker of graduating.  And these are exactly the ones who would benefit from legislation just announced in Olympia.  Representative Drew Hansen, the Bainbridge Island Democrat who chairs the House Higher Education Committee, is behind the Free to Finish College Program, which is just what it sounds like.  We'll let him explain it:

HANSEN:  "If you, number one, do not already have a degree or certificate . . . number two, you are not currently enrolled in college and have not been enrolled for the past three years . . . and number three, you're 15 credits or less short of your degree, we will pick up the tuition tab for you.  So you can come back to school and you can finish that degree you'd been working on." [:20]. 

Hansen was flanked by several college presidents as he explained the Free to Finish College Program, including Dr. James Gaudino, president of Ellensburg's Central Washington University.  He's instituted a number of efforts to reengage college dropouts, and he's an enthusiastic supporter of the plan announced Wednesday. 

GAUDINO:  "A bill like this that will pick up the cost for those students, we have the ability of either bringing them back to campus or reaching out to them wherever they are now, and it's just a win-win program, so this is wonderful." [:11]. 

The bipartisan bill got a hearing Wednesday afternoon and could get a vote of the full House by next week.  In Olympia, I’m Dan Frizzell.