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Waitlisted in California?

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EWU with WUE is the best out-of-state value of all Washington state universities

You may have seen the news: 472,000 students have been waitlisted for community colleges in California.

To put that number in perspective, that’s bigger than the entire population of cities like Kansas City, Atlanta, Minneapolis, St. Louis or Oakland. It’s almost as many people as the entire state of Wyoming. In fact, it’s bigger than a handful of countries in the world, including Iceland and the Bahamas.

Put another way, you could take all those waitlisted students in California and create 38 universities the same size as Eastern Washington University.

Why is this happening?

There  are a few big reasons.

  1. Lots of smart students in California want a college-degree because it means a chance for more and better jobs. According to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data, only 3.8 percent of college graduates over the age of 25 are unemployed. In comparison, the unemployment rate for the whole country is 7.7 percent.
  2. Even as more people want to go to college, the California state government is cutting its budget for colleges and universities. That means California colleges can’t admit all the qualified students who want to attend.
  3. Many of these students are low-income and first-generation, and it’s often harder for them to find cost-effective alternatives.

WUE in Washington state can help

Thankfully, some schools do have room for students, and EWU is one them.

If you’re a student from California, you should know that EWU offers the Western Undergraduate Exchange program to all students from California and 13 other states.

You might also want to know that EWU is the best value of all Washington state universities for out-of-state students.

University 2012-13 WUE Tuition & Fees
Eastern Washington University $11,306
Central Washington University $12,890
The Evergreen State College $20,383
University of Washington (Bothell) $29,466
University of Washington (Seattle) $29,938
University of Washington (Tacoma) $29,457
Washington State University* $25,382
Western Washington University* $19,152

 

*WWU and WSU don’t award WUE to all eligible students.

All qualified students should have access to college

A greater percentage of first generation and low-income students call EWU home than any other campus in Washington, and we’re still accepting applications.

Students need to find the college that’s the right fit for them, and EWU might be that place.

 

Saving money on tuition with WUE

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In my glorious undergraduate years (back before I could grow the few scraggly facial hairs I now call a beard), I met hundreds of alumni who came back to campus to reconnect with the school they had called home. One of them told me that when he had gone to school, tuition had been just $25. I didn’t believe him.

“Oh, not for the whole year,” he said. “That was for a semester. It was $50 for the year.”

Amazingly, this is completely true … and it’s not like we’re talking about an era before electricity or running water. People had cars. Rock and roll. Sliced bread even. It was the golden era of education, and for a long time in the United States, tuition to most state universities was free or next to free. In fact, it wasn’t until 1956 that Eastern started to charge tuition at all.

Things have certainly changed. Governments pay less for education than ever before, and that forces students and their families to pay more.

Eastern has always focused on providing the best possible education to its students and to making that education available to as many students as possible. That’s why we’re the best educational value in the state of Washington, and it’s why students who study here save thousands of dollars in tuition and fees compared to other public schools in the state.

One of the ways students can reduce tuition is a program called WUE.

WUE is an acronym for Western Undergraduate Exchange, and it’s pronounced so that it rhymes with “chewy” or “screwy.” Repeat the acronym fast enough and you start to sound like an ambulance.

(Admit it: you’re trying to sound like an ambulance right now. WUE WUE WUE.)

WUE is a financial aid exchange program that lets out-of state students from 14 western states (AK, AZ, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, NM, ND, OR, SD, UT, WY) save thousands of dollars on tuition at Eastern. Over four years, students can save $25,000 or more when they study at Eastern.

There’s an important deadline (Feb. 15, 2012), a GPA requirement and a residency requirement, so there are some details you’ll need to check out if you’re interested in making WUE work for you.

Here’s the best place to get started with WUE information, but we always encourage you to call or email with your questions so that you can talk to a real person about your particular situation.

WUE. WUE. WUE. WUE. WUE. Completely sounds like an ambulance.