- Ansel Herz
- Seattle Central President Paul Killpatrick, Seattle Central Foundation Executive Director Adam Nance, and Mayor Mike McGinn
Updated with comments from the Bruce Harrell and Mike McGinn mayoral campaigns.
Mayor Mike McGinn joined leaders from Seattle Central Community College today to announce a “major new education initiative” to fully fund tuition costs for 225 financially needy students next year.
“That’s 225 families whose lives will be changed forever when these students graduate and step into high paying jobs in Seattle’s knowledge based economy,” said Adam Nance, Seattle Central Foundation’s executive director.
Called Seattle Promise, the fund consists of private donations from Safeco Insurance Foundation and Boeing to an endowment. Each company donated $300,000. Nance said he expects more sponsors to get on board and grow the endowment into the millions to cover many more students in the next few years. “If you want to go to college and can’t afford to, we’ve got your back,” McGinn declared.
Tuition at community and technical colleges has shot up 49 percent in the past five years, while the number of students demonstrating financial need is up by 58 percent. Student loan debt across the country exceeds $1 trillion, making funds like this a much-needed reprieve for aspiring students.
In contrast, Boeing’s profits jumped during the first few months of this year to $1.1 billion and Chief Executive Jim McNerney received a 20 percent boost in compensation last year, up to $27.5 million. Safeco Insurance posted an $880 million profit in 2006. When you take that into account, the companies’ $300,000 donations begin look more like chump change.
Some say this is election-year showmanship—that Seattle Promise is McGinn’s attempt to get out ahead of Bruce Harrell’s education platform, which includes “a plan to fund a year of community college for all public-high-school graduates,” as Dominic reported. “I had not heard of the mayor recycling our main platform points,” said Monisha Harrell, his campaign manager. “It’s flattering that McGinn wants to learn to be a better mayor from Bruce.”
Aaron Pickus from McGinn’s campaign responds: “The Pittsburgh Promise is a program where the public and private sector combine to provide college scholarships to graduates of Pittsburgh high schools. McGinn promised to bring a similar program to Seattle in his 2009 campaign.”
Electoral infighting between mayoral candidates isn’t the point here, though, or at least I didn’t think it was. I asked Nance whether the end goal should be free higher education, so that students don’t have to go into debt and balance school with work. “Absolutely,” he said. “That’s not my decision to make, that’s a decision for the state legislature or federal government.” That would be a roughly $30 billion decision, which is why this graph is really sad.
