As students in Wisconsin, we have the right to allocate our own segregated fees for student activities and services that serve the student interest such as student organizations, the Student Union, and University Health Services. Although recently we have seen a lack of transparency from what are known as “non-allocable” entities (UHS, Wisconsin Union, Rec. Sports, etc.), the state statute upholding this right—the famous 36.09(5)—remains in full force. Students must protect their right to allocate their own funds even though it is often co-opted and attacked by non-students, including administrators and legislators alike. (more…)
Archive for the ‘College costs’ Category
“We won’t take it anymore”: UW-Madison students mobilize for student loan debt relief.
Thursday, April 5th, 2012Is this what shared governance looks like?
Wednesday, March 21st, 2012The following has been cross-posted from The Education Optimists:
For decades, the price of higher education has been rising at colleges and universities nationwide, and relatively few students and families have done so much as sniff. While occasional concerns about affordability have been expressed, that message has been quite soft when compared to the loud statement uttered by the millions who walk onto college campuses every year, despite rising tuition and fees. In other words, actions speak louder than words. Colleges and universities are able to say: if we are truly charging more than you want to pay, why do you keep buying it?
Anecdotes don’t reflect UW reality
Tuesday, March 13th, 2012“Students should be working 40 hours a week, but these days they are taking off work to hang out with their friends and then are abusing Badger Care and the food pantries. Students need to pay attention to what’s going on around them.” — Fred Mohs, former University of Wisconsin regent and member of the legislative Special Task Force on UW Restructuring and Operational Flexibility
This is what I and several other students heard as we sat in the spectator gallery of a state Capitol hearing room. We were floored by the disconnect from reality that Mohs displayed. What’s worse is that it was not an isolated incident. It accurately reflects the task force’s primary mode of action: charting a course via anecdote. (more…)
Responding to decreased state support: A modest proposal.
Monday, March 5th, 2012The Commission on Faculty Compensation and Economic Benefits has issued its annual report for 2011-2012 [PDF]. The commission rightly identifies a looming crisis in compensation for faculty and staff at UW-Madison. The report provides not only a thoughtful and sober analysis of the magnitude of the problem and of the role of sharply declining state support in exacerbating the problem; it also offers a fairly exhaustive itemization of options available to help mitigate the crisis; e.g., increased efficiencies, alternative revenue sources, and “temporary incentives.” (more…)
Give the Wisconsin Compact some teeth.
Friday, February 17th, 2012Last Wednesday, the Joint Finance Committee handed UW System an additional $46.1 million cut in the form a budget lapse, continuing the deleterious trend of divestment from public higher education and the economic engine of Wisconsin. Like the $250 million that JFC cut from UW System this summer, this $46.1 million budget lapse will lead to continued faculty and staff salary freezes, gradually rising tuition, and threats to UW-Madison’s ability to produce an educated workforce for the twenty-first century. Although it is politically convenient to blame these cuts on the current Republican legislature and the Walker administration, the cuts to UW System have long-standing bipartisan roots. (more…)
Supporting our future.
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012As the new year approaches, I have our future students on my mind.
Today one of our core values is at stake—something that should concern all of us who are committed to the future of our college, UW–Madison and Wisconsin. I am talking about declining state support for postsecondary education and its devastating effect on our young people and their opportunities. (more…)
Rise in sticker price at public colleges outpaces that at private colleges for 5th year in a row.
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published the following article on rising costs at public universities:
Rise in Sticker Price at Public Colleges Outpaces That at Private Colleges for 5th Year in a Row, by Beckie Supiano, October 26, 2011
The average price for tuition and fees at public four-year colleges was $8,244 for in-state students in 2011-12, up from $7,613 in 2010-11, an 8.3-percent increase. That percentage change drops to 7.0 percent if California—which had a 21-percent increase in tuition in that one-year period—is excluded.
Here in Wisconsin, in-state tuition and fees for the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the fall 2011 semester totaled $4,832.50, compared with $4,491.60 for the fall 2010 semester; in-state tuition and fees for UW-Milwaukee for the fall 2011 semester totaled $4,337.70, compared with $4,075.63 for the fall 2010 semester. In percentage terms, the increases are 7.6% and 6.4%, respectively.
The basic message in this is that UW-Madison’s in-state tuition is still well below the national average, but the percentage increase is comparable to that experienced elsewhere. In short, like elsewhere, the investment by the state of Wisconsin in making higher education affordable for all of its citizens is being dialed back.
We already knew this, of course. But the latest massive hits to the UW-System budget, not reflected in the above figures, are virtually certain to sharply accelerate the cost increases. In fact, if current trends continue, we can expect to see the distinction between private and public institutions become almost meaningless.
Is this really what the citizens of Wisconsin want?
Here’s what dependence on donors looks like
Saturday, May 7th, 2011One of the cornerstones of the public authority proposal that Chancellor Biddy Martin has been pushing with all her might (in contrast to, say, her non-existent campaign for greater public support of the university) is the assumption that we would be able to count on greater donor contributions to patch holes in the budget.
This Bloomberg article documents how that model has worked out for other universities, and it’s not a pretty picture:
Schools Find Ayn Rand Can’t Be Shrugged as Donors Build Courses
If you support the public authority and believe that private donations will be an important source of new revenue, please explain to the rest of us how we will avoid the same fate. Or at least explain why we should embrace that fate.
Either way, it’s past time for more honesty, more facts, more figures, less wishful thinking, and fewer empty platitudes.
- GP
What I WILL fight for
Saturday, May 7th, 2011Am I the only one who’s noticed how the twisted logical foundation of the campaign for public authority? If you press people, it goes like this:
The state is steadily defunding us and that’s simply inevitable, so the only thing we can do is accept even more draconian cuts in exchange for some modest leeway in managing our own resources. That’s the best we can do and we have to fight for it.
Smart, engaged people on campus are arguing vigorously and explicitly for just this position, if mostly only in the echo chamber of the campus. And the chancellor is spending most of her time and a ton of resources and staff time to push this, not to mention the help of the mysteriously-funded Badger Advocates. She and her staff are incessantly begging us to do the same. (more…)