{"id":827745,"date":"2025-02-17T13:12:35","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T19:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/17\/silver-tsunami-could-propel-change-at-low-enrollment-wa-college\/"},"modified":"2025-02-17T13:12:35","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T19:12:35","slug":"silver-tsunami-could-propel-change-at-low-enrollment-wa-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/17\/silver-tsunami-could-propel-change-at-low-enrollment-wa-college\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Silver tsunami\u2019 could propel change at low-enrollment WA college"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A state senator in Washington<\/a>, citing dwindling enrollment numbers at an Olympia college and the impending \u201csilver tsunami<\/a>\u201d of population trends, wants to close an existing college campus and transfer its control to the University of Washington to repurpose it for health sciences studies.<\/p>\n

This is according to an announcement<\/a> from the senator\u2019s office, along with the text of a proposed bill reviewed by HousingWire<\/strong>\u2019s Reverse Mortgage Daily (RMD), and an interview with the senator who introduced the bill.<\/p>\n

\n

John Braun, who serves as the Republican<\/a> minority leader in the state Senate, said that the trend of Washington\u2019s population getting older \u2014 i.e., the \u201csilver tsunami\u201d \u2014 necessitates new priorities for education and training of more health workers who can accommodate the growing share of older Washingtonians.<\/p>\n

Evergreen State College \u2014 located in the state capital of Olympia \u2014 has seen declining enrollment numbers in recent years. Braun cites a May 2024 news story<\/a> from a local newspaper, where a college official cited a more complex federal student aid application as a key culprit to the low enrollment figure.<\/p>\n

The bill at hand has been referred to the state Senate\u2019s higher education and workforce development committee. RMD reached out the committee\u2019s chair, Sen. T\u2019wina Nobles (D), who declined to comment. Outreach to Evergreen State College was not returned.<\/p>\n

But Braun spoke with RMD and said that addressing the needs of older Washingtonians starts with bolstering the labor force that is equipped to provide care. He said he\u2019s hopeful that his Senate colleagues will understand that to accomplish such a goal, they need more capacity for dedicated education.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bottom line is that we\u2019re having less folks interested in the unique educational opportunities that are available at Evergreen,\u201d he said, adding that it\u2019s not his intention to \u201cpick on Evergreen\u201d as some of his colleagues have done in the past. Instead, dwindling enrollments have suggested that the state could put the facilities to better use by looking at the issue of an aging population.<\/p>\n

Braun added that enrollment at Evergreen State College is far from what it was in the early 2010s. The college was founded in 1967.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts full-time enrollment of 2,386 in 2024 is identical to the enrollment in 1982 and less than half of what it was in 2009-2011,\u201d Braun said when announcing the proposal.<\/p>\n

This would be a longer-term goal, and preliminary conversations he\u2019s had with fellow lawmakers and newly minted Gov. Bob Ferguson (D) have demonstrated a wide variety of reactions. Lawmakers in the same district as the college are resistant, but Braun said the governor was at least intrigued by the concept without committing one way or the other.<\/p>\n

The costs to renovate the existing campus would be a concern for some of his colleagues, Braun said. But the funding that goes to the college right now is pronounced, and making an investment in the workforce of the future that can better accommodate more older residents would be an incentive for lawmakers and the college\u2019s community, he said.<\/p>\n

Like much of the country, Washington is facing an increase in the number of older residents<\/a> in the coming years along with a shortfall of workers to care for them. Braun argues that repurposing the college can help to address this challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to look for incremental improvements. I think that\u2019s our best chance politically, and from a \u2018do-no-harm\u2019 perspective,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd my little incremental piece is, how do we make the workforce stronger and more available? It\u2019s the Evergreen bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike much of the country, Washington has already taken some action to address its residents\u2019 later-in-life needs. In 2019, the state Legislature passed the creation of a new payroll tax solely for the purpose of funding long-term care insurance. The \u201cWA Cares\u201d tax features a lifetime maximum benefit starting at $36,500, with a cap indexed to inflation.<\/p>\n

Anti-tax advocates in the state successfully placed an initiative on the November 2024 ballot<\/a> that would have made enrollment in the program voluntary rather than mandatory, but Washington voters rejected<\/a> the initiative, 55% to 45%. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A state senator in Washington, citing dwindling enrollment numbers at an Olympia college and the impending \u201csilver tsunami\u201d of population trends, wants to close an existing college campus and transfer its control to the University of Washington to repurpose it for health sciences studies. This is according to an announcement from the senator\u2019s office, along<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":827746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23917,96044],"tags":[10092,101055],"class_list":{"0":"post-827745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-silver","8":"category-tsunami","9":"tag-silver","10":"tag-tsunami"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}