Washington (state)

Washington ⁱ/ˈwɒʃɪŋtən/ is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States located north of Oregon, west of Idaho, and south of the Canadian province of British Columbia on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Named after George Washington, the first President of the United States, the state was made out of the western part of the Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as a settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the 42nd state in 1889. Washington is often referred to as Washington State or the State of Washington to distinguish it from Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States.

Washington is the 18th largest and the 13th most populous state. Approximately 60 percent of Washington's residents live in the Seattle metropolitan area, the center of transportation, business, and industry along the Puget Sound region of the Salish Sea, an inlet of the Pacific consisting of numerous islands, deep fjords, and bays carved out by glaciers. The remainder of the state consists of deep temperate rainforests in the west, mountain ranges in the west, central, northeast and far southeast, and a semi-arid basin region in the east, central, and south, given over to intensive agriculture. After California, Washington is the second most populous state on the West Coast and in the Western United States.

Washington State University Vancouver

Washington State University Vancouver is a branch of Washington State University, located on a 351-acre (1.42 km²) campus in Vancouver, Washington, approximately eight miles (13 km) north of the Columbia River and 17 miles north of downtown Portland, Oregon. Degrees offered by WSU Vancouver are conferred by Washington State University. WSU is the only "Research I" (RU/VH) institution in the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area, based on the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Previously an undergraduate transfer college, WSU Vancouver expanded to a full four-year university in 2006.

Statistics

History

Washington State University began offering courses in Southwest Washington in 1983 as part of the Southwest Washington Joint Center for Education. In 1989, the University in Pullman formally established Washington State University Vancouver as a branch campus of the state's land-grant institution. The current Salmon Creek campus opened in 1996. In Fall 2006, WSU Vancouver admitted freshmen and sophomores for the first time and began offering lower-division courses.

State university system

A state university system in the United States is a group of public universities supported by an individual state, or a similar entity such as the District of Columbia. These systems constitute the majority of public-funded universities in the country. Each state supports at least one such system.

State university systems should not be confused with federally funded colleges and universities, at which attendance is limited to military personnel and government employees. Members of foreign militaries and governments also attend some schools. These schools include the United States military academies, Naval Postgraduate School, and military staff colleges.

A state university system normally means a single legal entity and administration, but may consist of several institutions, each with its own identity as a university. Some states—such as California and Texas—support more than one such system.

State universities get subsidies from their states. The amount of the subsidy varies from university to university and state to state, but the effect is to lower tuition costs below that of private universities for students from that state or district. As more and more Americans attend college, and private tuition rates increase well beyond the rate of inflation, admission to state universities is becoming more and more competitive.

Washington State University

Washington State University (WSU) is a public research university based in Pullman, Washington, in the Palouse region of the northwest United States.

Founded 126 years ago in 1890, WSU (colloquially "Wazzu") is the state's land-grant university, well known for its programs in chemical engineering, veterinary medicine, agriculture, pharmacy, neuroscience, food science, plant science, business, architecture, and communications. It is ranked in the top 140 universities in America with high research activity, as determined by the U.S. News & World Report. With an undergraduate enrollment of 24,470 and a total student enrollment of 29,686, it is the second largest institution of higher education in Washington state.

The university also operates campuses across Washington known as WSU Spokane, WSU Tri-Cities, and WSU Vancouver, all founded 27 years ago in 1989. In 1992, WSU launched an Internet-based Global Campus, which includes its online degree program, WSU Online. These campuses award primarily bachelor's and master's degrees. Freshmen and sophomores were first admitted to the Vancouver campus in 2006 and to the Tri-Cities campus in 2007. Total enrollment for the four campuses and WSU Online exceeds 29,686 students. This includes 1,751 international students.

Washington State

Washington State may refer to:

See also