Legislation signed today by Gov. Jay Inslee will make sure Guaranteed Education Tuition (GET) credits accurately reflect tuition costs at the time of purchase.
“GET enables the parents of young kids today to afford the cost of tuition when their kids grow to college age,” said Sen. Mark Mullet (D-Issaquah). “It’s an affordable bridge to the future, and this law will make sure it stays affordable.”
The GET program allows households to purchase tuition credit at today’s rates and apply the credits years later, avoiding the increased costs of future years. Earlier this year, however, Mullet noticed that GET credits for a year of tuition at the University of Washington were priced significantly higher than what UW is charging for tuition. He sponsored Senate Bill 5430 to establish price guidelines to ensure that GET fee increases do not exceed the average growth rate of the median hourly wage in Washington state.
“With this law, the price of a GET unit will be $122 instead of the current $133,” Mullet said. “That’s the difference between paying $12,200 for a year of UW tuition or $13,300.”
In addition to capping the rate of future increases, the law accords additional credits to parents who paid the excessively higher tuition fees this past year, Mullet noted.
“This is going to save households more than $1,000 on the cost of a year of college,” he said. “If you have two kids and they both go to college for four years, you’re going to save over $8,000.”
