YOUR Evergreen Advocacy efforts paid off!

On May 20, Governor Ferguson signed the State’s two-year operating budget for Washington. With a $16 billion shortfall, the legislature and the Governor made extremely difficult decisions about institutions and programs to keep or cut.

It was a nail-biter down to the last minute. The Evergreen State College’s budget had been on the chopping block since the legislators came to town in January.

Remember how Senator John Braun wanted to turn our Alma Mater into a medical-technical training school? SB 5424  Then came the House budget cut proposal to slash Evergreen’s budget by 28%. All in all, the four-year higher education system took a very large share of the required cuts in the State’s operating and capital budgets.

But thanks to YOU the final budget cut to Evergreen is a 2% reduction in FY 2026 growing to a 5% reduction in FY 2027.

Bad News: Evergreen does get a penalty, a $2.8 million additional cut, as a part of the 5% cut in 2027. Why? Because when the legislature created Evergreen, they envisioned a smaller college which would offer an excellent liberal arts and sciences education at a public-school price. This model does not have the economies of scale that you find at the state’s other public schools.

In fact, Governor Dan Evans wanted Evergreen to become a “flexible and sophisticated educational instrument” and to “unshackle our educational thinking from traditional patterns.” The then Senator Sandison from the Olympic Peninsula endorsed Evan’s approach by saying:

“It was not the intent of the legislature that …Evergreen… would be just another four-year college…(instead) it would be a unique opportunity to meet the needs of …students and would not be bound by rigid structure of tradition as are the existing colleges…”  https://archives.evergreen.edu/1971/1971-01/kormondy_acadaffshist1974.pdf

YOU participated in a unique college experience over the past 50 years to meet the call of the legislature. “Economies of scale” were never watchwords on our campus.

And Evergreen’s enrollment has climbed steadily over the past 3 years.  We had a 13% year-over-year increase in spring 2025 enrollment. This marks the third consecutive year of spring enrollment growth and includes significant gains among first-generation undergraduate students.

You helped bring down the initial deep cuts!

Here is the Good News!

Shelton Promise was fully funded and now has 55 new students enrolled. The Promise student enrollment will help address the “economies of scale” criticism…

More good news… In the capital budget, Evergreen was awarded $16.3 million to renovate third floors of Lab I and II. We also have funds to continue renovating SEM 1.  Please join us to see all the campus changes at Return to Evergreen this Fall.

Also, amid the austerity budget, there is still money to:

…honor our Collective Bargaining agreements to provide salary increases for represented staff of 3% in FY 2026 and 2% in 2027,

…prevent employee furloughs,

…upgrade our IT systems, and

…fully fund the Washington College Grant scholarships.

This coming summer and fall, we want legislators to continue to hear from you. We will increase our contacts with legislators and staff for deeper conversations about Evergreen. Stay tuned for your invitation to get involved!

So, thank YOU for being an Evergreen Advocate.

You can see where your efforts sure paid off!

We’ll see you for the 2026 Legislative Session….