This background paper provides updated information on the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board's comprehensive master plan for improving postsecondary enrollment. The plan stresses (1) increased enrollment levels at the four-year institutions to reach full capacity by 2005; (2) increased community college enrollments to reflect population growth and anticipated demand for academic transfer programs at branch campuses; (3) additional branch campuses to serve 17,000 headcount students by 2010; and (4) reliance on independent institutions to help meet the state's goal by meeting their own growth projections. The report examines the evolution of the State's Master Plan; provides a review of higher education funding patterns and their relationship to enrollments as well as the environmental impacts and emerging trends in demographics, economic conditions, and political circumstances within the state. An appendix provides economic trend data for the state, and a comparison of educational attainment for all 50 states broken out by percentage of high school graduates and by percentage of degrees awarded. (Contains 13 references.) (GLR)