Castro appointed to WICHE Legislative Advisory Committee

Rep. Manny Castro (Ind-Saipan) has been appointed to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education’s Legislative Advisory Committee after last week attending its annual meeting.

LAC’s 16 members work collaboratively to expand educational access and excellence for all residents of the West. The WICHE commissioners created the LAC in 1995 to inform the commission and staff about significant legislative issues related to higher education in the region.

WICHE organized was formally in 1951 as an intentional collaboration between state governments in the West and launched an embryonic program of activities in 1953.

WICHE has continuously and effectively served one mission: to expand access to high-quality higher education to the citizens of the West. In 2012 and under the leadership of then Northern Marianas College president Dr. Sharon Y. Hart the CNMI was the first to join WICHE under the shared Pacific Islands membership open to all U.S. Pacific Territories and Freely Associated States. The CNMI has partnered with and benefited from WICHE through regional collaboration, resource-sharing, sound public policy, and innovation.

“We owe a great amount of thanks to Dr. Sharon Y. Hart, the late governor Eloy S. Inos, the late CNMI Scholarship Office (CSO) administrator Rose S. Pangelinan, our CNMI WICHE commissioner NMC vice president Frankie Eliptico, Sen. Jude U. Hofschneider (R-Saipan) and many others, for their vision and effort during the initial stages of this meaningful program, their work has help save CNMI families thousands of dollars in tuition cost, provide better opportunities and transform lives,” said Castro.

In 2001 at the age of 14, Castro graduated from Hopwood Junior High School and made the difficult choice of moving to Oregon to further his education.

“At that time, we did not have programs like WICHE, back then to obtain a better college tuition rate, many of us had to move to the U.S. mainland prior to completing high school. It was a difficult choice, but for every difficult choice there is a reward either immediate or long-term, and if it was not for that struggle, I would not be here in Arizona sitting at the table meeting with other state legislators engaging in the discussion of higher education issues and strategizing for interstate/territory collaboration,” he said.

The CNMI’s No. 1 asset is human capital (our people), according to Castro.

“With our small and fragile island economy we cannot afford to be complacent, we must continue to synergize efforts and improve outcomes,” he said.

WICHE provides strong return on investment for the CNMI:

CNMI residents saved $1.3 million in 2019-20 through the Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) and the Western Regional Graduate Program (WRGP). These WICHE programs provide significant student savings on nonresident tuition at 170+ Western U.S. public colleges and universities.

In 2019-20 WICHE Student Access Programs provided the CNMI a 735% return on investment, relative to the state’s annual WICHE dues.

CNMI students and their families have saved $3.5 million since beginning by participating in WUE.

The Master Property Program (MPP) helps institutions reduce their insurance premiums and improve their coverage. The MPP includes more than 170 campuses with total insured values of over $100 billion. (PR)