The State of Washington prides itself on having a relatively vibrant economy that centers on high technology businesses that depends on a relatively highly educated labor force. The state has been lavish in its support of higher education, and probably most citizens would agree that the state has a pretty good system of schools to serve the state's citizens. For example, there are only eight public universities in the United States that ranked above the University of Washington in the "US News & World Report" rankings of national universities for 2008. Yet a closer examination of higher education in the state shows that not all is well. The proportion of entering high school students who actually hold four year college degrees a decade later is extremely low in Washington--well below the already shameful national average. University costs--to students and to taxpayers--have risen a great deal, even more than national averages. There is some evidence that Washington universities have "done less with more" over time, rather than the more desirable reverse--more with less. It is easy to criticize something, but it is harder to make recommendations for positive change. At the end of this extensive report, the authors offer some suggestions for ways to reduce the costs of the higher education enterprise in the state. Some of them are probably being implemented to some degree even now, but the empirical evidence on higher education in the state suggests that much more serious attention needs to be placed on an increasingly costly system of schools with a mixed rate of success in meeting the needs of the citizens of Washington. The authors hope this report sparks a dialogue on the state's postsecondary educational system. (Contains 7 tables, 33 charts and 15 endnotes.) [Funding for this study was provided by the Center for Excellence in Higher Education.]