Introduction

The Academic Staff Executive Committee (ASEC) has spent the recent weeks reviewing the Preliminary Recommendations of the HR Design Phase I work groups. For the purpose of this review, we primarily concentrated on issues that would affect academic staff but also commented on other issues that we found in the documents. Before we go into individual work team recommendations, we have some overarching comments. These concern the lack of data upon which recommendations were based, the considerable investment of money and other resources that implementation of the recommendations would take, and the effects of the recommendations on academic staff.

First, many of the reports do not include data upon which the teams’ recommendations were based. While data will likely play a larger role as we begin to decide on the details, even at this stage we were often wondering what data drove many of the conclusions and resulting recommendations. For instance, how did the Benefits Team decide on the number of hours of vacation they recommend for new employees? Did the Employee Categories Team identify the types of employee categories at our peer institutions? Why did the Titling Team suggest that only four promotional levels would be sufficient? How many waivers of open recruitment are granted each year? Data that supports or lends a historical background to these recommendations would be very useful. Such data would help audiences understand the recommendations that have been proposed, which in turn would help us better evaluate the rationale or justification for those recommendations. Finally, such data also would help the university evaluate the effects of implementing the current recommendations.

When looking at the report recommendations in total, it is clear that implementing these recommendations would take an extremely large resource investment by the UW-Madison. This investment must take the form of additional personnel in human resources offices as well as other new resources to support these offices. Furthermore, several of the changes will need oversight by various governance groups, including ASEC and others. In order for many of the recommendations to succeed, they have to be fully implemented with fully staffed offices to handle the additional workload. For instance, if we want to have a market-based salary system, then we need a fully staffed and supported office to create and maintain the market data for both classified and academic staff as currently defined. Without this, only those titles with easy comparables through CUPA or other resources will have market-driven salaries, while the rest would be left out.

ASEC is extremely concerned about the sacrifices that academic staff are being asked to make, as compared to other employee groups, in these recommendations. If fully implemented, the proposed recommendations would provide new academic staff with a smaller compensation package than new academic staff receive today. Current academic staff will lose out as well: they will be adversely affected by less vacation carry-over and a diluted voice in governance. While there are certainly items that will benefit academic staff, such as the ability to bank vacation earlier and a slight increase in sick leave, the overall package does not give as much to academic staff (both current and future) as it asks them to give up. In an era when academic staff have been waiting for more than four years to receive any type of raise, and when annual incomes for academic staff continue to decline, ASEC believes that it is unfair to ask academic staff to give up much more of what they are currently earning. On balance, this set of recommendations is asking for just that.

Last but not least, many of the reports reference the so-called “caste” system on campus. ASEC is concerned about this choice of words, which appears to have been made without regard for the cultural meaning of the term “caste,” which refers to structural inequalities and a system in which people are born into a certain level from which they cannot move. We suggest the use of another, more appropriate term to describe the UW-Madison climate, such as “classism” or “behavioral hierarchy.” ASEC recognizes that serious climate issues exist on this campus in this regard, and that these issues daily affect how people feel about their jobs and about the UW. We do not seek to minimize the impact of these behaviors and attitudes. However, we do urge the work teams to use other words to describe this aspect of climate and perhaps even to review ways that their proposals can address these underlying class-related climate issues.

In addition to the comments we have offered each work team below, you are welcome to browse the Academic Staff Assembly listserv (https://lists.wisc.edu/read/?forum=assembly) where there has been much discussion about some of these issues.

Benefits

1. Benefits are part of a compensation package. The recommendations put forth by the Benefits Team will reduce total compensation, which includes salary/wages and benefits. All full-time, 12-month employees should start with 212 hours (176 vacation hours + 36 hours of personal holiday), and vacation amounts should be amplified from this point. The current proposal creates negative equity for all employees.
2. Our benefit package is a recruitment tool, particularly in difficult times; sometimes benefits speak more to potential hires, and even to continuing employees, than money. ASEC would like to see the data upon which the Benefits Team based its recommendations that reduce the benefit package for many new and continuing employees. It should be noted that newly employed academic staff will lose nearly 52 hours of vacation/personal time under this proposal. Children attending MMSD have 16 days of vacation that do not coincide with the UW’s current holiday schedule, which means a single parent would have four days of vacation left (after caring for her/his child when local schools are not in session).
3. Please provide more explanation of the following:
   • Regarding the phrase “end the ability to ‘cash out’ vacation,” it is not clear to whom this would apply. Is this for classified or unclassified staff, and what are the financial implications?
   • Why is the team recommending changing the basis for unclassified staff leave
     reporting from two-hour increments to 60-minute increments? The ramifications, both positive and negative, of recommending a change in the current policy are unclear. Given that the change from hourly reporting to the current structure occurred just a few years ago, why is the team recommending the UW change back?
   • Why has a cap on banking leave been recommended? Such caps penalize employees for doing their work—work obligations do not always allow people to use their allotted vacation time, and one should not lose out on benefits for being a conscientious employee or for working in a role that severely constrains the use of vacation time. In addition, the current lack of a cap allows employees to have flexibility for dealing with life events such as birth/adoption, health issues, and family care.
4. Academic staff are strongly in favor of tuition benefits for employees and dependents as well as paid parental leave, and we would like to see tuition benefits and parental leave addressed in the final draft. Sabbatical leave also needs to be addressed for academic staff. Many academic staff positions require the same level of renewal as that needed by faculty to reflect the current knowledge in their work.

Compensation

1. ASEC recommends that a board/committee appointed by governance and comprised of academic staff, faculty, and other stakeholders be created to advise campus leadership regarding policies of the proposed compensation analysis office. While ASEC understands that market factors may weigh similar jobs in different disciplines differently (i.e., arts vs. sciences), ASEC recommends that a reasonable basement rate be established that may differ from the market for that particular job.
2. The report is unclear regarding which markets could or would be considered in a market-based compensation structure. These markets need to be carefully defined. ASEC recommends that campus have a discussion regarding how much this market would include private sector employment as compared to other institutions of higher education.
3. A correction is required on page 13 regarding Compensation Drivers listed under Time Limited Pay Adjustments: Current federal law prohibits giving a pay adjustment for “winning an extramural grant.”
4. A correction is required on page 10 in the seventh bullet: By current state statute, academic staff and faculty are prevented from being compensated based upon performance.
5. Years of experience with satisfactory or better performance should be taken into consideration for compensation.

Competencies

The Competencies Team’s recommendations are generally creative and represent an approach that seems to be mindful of a variety of considerations, including attracting and retaining the best possible staff, academic and classified. However, there are significant issues with the report, including some basic, foundational information, such as definitions. On page two of its draft report, the team defines competencies as the following:

Competencies are identified knowledge, skills, abilities, and mindsets, evaluated through demonstrated behaviors, which directly and positively contribute to the success of the organization and to the success of employees in their job role, position, and function.

• Knowledge: what you are aware of; information known within a content area typically from facts or experience
• Skills: the how-to’s of a role; doing physical or mental tasks; capabilities that can be transferred from one person to another
• Ability: being able to or having the potential to perform; sometimes used interchangeably with talent
• Mindset: attitudes, beliefs, values, perceptions, etc. that are demonstrated in behavior

ASEC has identified the following issues with this definition:

1. Postsecondary education is neither a consideration nor is it even explicitly stated as a foundation for any of the competencies required to do one’s job at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Even the definition of “knowledge” does not seem to allow for the fact that a postsecondary education may have provided a person with at least some of the knowledge and skills needed to do a job at UW–Madison.
2. Related to this, there are no references to certifications, credentials and/or degrees that are required of many UW–Madison employees. Should competencies be used as a complement to other achievements of the best-qualified staff (e.g., degrees, certifications and credentials)?
3. The use of the term “mindsets” is problematic in that an employer in general can only require certain behaviors of its employees and cannot require employees to have particular “attitudes, beliefs, values, perceptions, etc.” that may affect those behaviors. ASEC is concerned that use of this term could lead to hiring and retaining only those who are “like us” (“us” being the hiring and evaluative authorities), thereby potentially reducing campus diversity and reinforcing power and privilege structures/systems. We also are concerned that this competency could lead to inappropriate questions during the interview process.
4. In general, ASEC found the definition of “competencies” to be rather vague and is concerned the lack of widespread and consistent understanding of competencies may therefore lead to different applications among different groups of university employees. Information on the source of the design team’s definitions would be useful to campus understanding.
5. A competencies-based approach to all stages of the employee life cycle is a laudable goal, but the report does not indicate where this should begin or what a logical set of steps is for getting to this goal. ASEC suggests beginning with annual performance assessments for all faculty and staff that incorporate “core competencies that reflect the mission, vision, and values of the UW–Madison and which apply to all employees.”
6. The report uses the word “employees,” but it is unclear whether this includes faculty as well. The report should be more explicit about the inclusion of faculty in its recommendations.

Diverse Workforce

1. Include a specific recommendation—either on its own or stated more prominently within the text of Recommendation #4—that resources and staff be dedicated to the assessment of diversity and climate efforts. The report alludes to this but does not make it prominent. Millions of dollars are spent on diversity efforts on this campus but, as the team’s report indicates, little evidence is gathered as to their effectiveness. We would add that efforts to implement assessment are often met with resistance and viewed as threats to diversity initiatives rather than attempts at improvement. A true focus on assessment is needed to inform the most efficient use of resources in enhancing the diversity of UW’s workforce. This recommendation could refer to the examples of the different types of data that need to be collected (already listed under Open Questions on p.13).
2. Consider whether to recommend improvements in the coordination of all campus units listed on p.4. While efforts have been made to consolidate these units under the umbrella of one division, decentralization still is identified as a problem in achieving diversity goals. An examination of ways to enhance the coordination of all units, whether under or outside of the divisional umbrella, is a potential solution.
3. Specify whether the team recommends that climate training be mandatory for employees and supervisors or just available (see p.9).
4. Be more specific as to what constitutes “accountability.” It is unclear whether the team views accountability as the use of actual goals and metrics, the documentation of success and progress, or some other set of measures. Without clarification as to how efforts will be measured, the mention of “sanctions” and “negative consequences in terms of compensation” for unit leaders who fail to promote a good campus climate are difficult to interpret.
5. Regarding the team’s definition of diversity:
   • ASEC recommends replacing “psychosocial” with “cognitive.” It is our understanding that the inclusion of “psychosocial” is intended to reflect the need for intellectual diversity on our campus; however, “cognitive” diversity more accurately describes this need and leaves less room for falling into the trap of hiring “those who think like us.”
   • Appendix 1: “Elements of Diversity” is an admirable, comprehensive effort. We ask the team to also reference and consider adding elements discussed in the Provost’s Office document entitled “Faculty Diversity and Excellence: A Compelling University Interest” [PDF], as it represents a foundation for defining diversity on campus.

Employee Categories

Executive Summary

ASEC has a wide variety of detailed comments and suggestions for this work team (see Detailed Summary). ASEC’s primary response, however, is to strongly recommend that the work team abandon their initial primary recommendation of “Collapsing all Classified staff into a single large category of Academic Staff” in favor of advocating a modified Alternative #1 (as referenced in HR Design DRAFT Recommendations). ASEC would support Alternative #1 as presented in the draft if the following six conditions were met:

1. Consult with current classified staff regarding a new name for their group.
2. Current classified staff with exempt status must be consulted and provided the choice of joining the academic staff or remaining within the newly defined classified staff category.
3. Ensure that members of the current classified staff employee category are eventually provided statutory governance rights equal to those currently extended to faculty, academic staff, and students at the university. While statutory rights should be the final goal, change of statute is not a necessary precondition for such rights to be extended; it could be accomplished by changing institutional policy and practice.
4. Should full collective bargaining rights be restored in Wisconsin, ensure that all employees, whether academic or former classified staff, have the option of union or governance representation in matters related to personnel policies and procedures— but not both.
5. Use suggestions from the Titling, Compensation and Benefits teams to address current inequities and barriers to advancement.
6. Make a documented effort to obtain, analyze, and assess data that would predict the likely intended and unintended consequences of structural changes in employee categories at the university.

Detailed Summary

Following a thorough review and consultation with a range of individuals and governance groups on campus, ASEC concluded that it cannot support the primary recommendation from the Employee Categories Team to combine all current classified staff and academic staff into a single, large category of “academic staff.” Rather than providing a point-by-point response to the draft recommendation and overall report, ASEC determined the best course of action is to forward support for an alternate recommendation—either for a modest restructuring of the university’s current employee category structure or for no change in the employee category structure at all. It is likely that a number of the concerns and workplace/climate issues raised in the report could actually be addressed outside of any need to modify the employee category structure at the institution. The bullet points below briefly review ASEC’s major concerns with the team’s initial recommendation and outline those specific modifications we believe would create a more data-driven employee categories recommendation that most campus parties could support.

Our primary objection to the Employee Categories Team’s draft report can be summarized as a concern about the lack of empirical evidence (data) for the existence, scope, or strength of campus support for the “issues” it presents and a similar lack of evidence for how the recommendation (a major structural change to the employee categories at the institution) would solve or ameliorate those issues. A concerted and systematic effort should be made to obtain, analyze, and assess data that could predict both the intended and potentially unintended consequences of any structural changes in employee classification at the university, including the alternative recommendation proposed below. Other concerns with this proposal are as follows:

• ASEC is greatly concerned with the implication of the report’s proposed recommendation, that currently represented classified staff would lose, without consultation and without consent, their collective bargaining rights. Academic staff currently do not have collective bargaining rights, and state law would have to be changed for academic staff to get these rights. While the collective bargaining rights of classified staff have been curtailed by current state law, those rights still exist and, in fact, courts have recently ruled against the parts of that law that require annual recertification and prohibit employers from withholding union dues from paychecks. ASEC members also worry that the Employee Categories Team underplayed or perhaps did not consider what we believe to be potential major political and cultural consequences of their recommendation; that is, the political, media, and public good- will ramifications of even appearing to further disempower or alienate current represented classified staff by effectively removing their future ability to collectively bargain.
• In 2010 some unions initiated efforts of unit clarification for an array of academic staff positions throughout the UW System. (This means that those academic staff could have been put into a union without their having had the opportunity to vote on union representation.) Due to this history, ASEC is concerned that, should current classified staff and academic staff be fully merged and state law to be changed in the future to give academic staff collective bargaining rights, the labor unions could once again initiate calls for unit clarification, and academic staff could be put into a labor union without their consultation and without their consent. Furthermore, ASEC is concerned that creating one employee category could lead to a single bargaining unit created for all academic staff, leading to the possibility of current academic staff becoming unionized even though there has historically been little interest in this. These concerns are not unfounded given the recent unit clarification effort noted above by some unions. Until better evidence becomes available and is presented, and given the acknowledged and unknown issues almost certainly entailed by the current draft recommendation, ASEC strongly urges that the primary Employee Categories Team draft recommendation be withdrawn. While a close reading of the current report might suggest the best course was to “change nothing,” ASEC believes that the report already contains the outline of a middle course.

ASEC Alternative Recommendation

Given the concerns and issues outlined above, ASEC proposes an alternative employee categories recommendation. This recommendation builds upon “Alternative #1,” which, as described in the Employee Categories Team’s report, would maintain the academic staff as currently configured and bring into the academic staff category those classified staff at the institution who are currently exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

ASEC recommends that classified staff who are currently non-exempt could form a new employee category. Current classified staff should decide on the name for this new employee category. Current exempt classified staff must be consulted and provided the choice of joining the academic staff (and losing collective bargaining rights) or remaining within the former classified staff category. Members of the former classified staff employee category must be provided statutory governance rights equal to those currently extended to faculty, academic staff, and students at the university. Change of statute is not a necessary precondition for such rights to be extended prior to statutory change, it could be done directly by changing institutional policy and practice. Should full collective bargaining rights be restored in the state, former classified and academic staff would be given the choice of either governance or union/collective bargaining representation and voice (not both), thereby ensuring that all employees (whether academic or former classified staff) have the option of union/collective bargaining or governance representation.

ASEC believes the Alternative #1 Employee Category recommendation would

• Provide maximum flexibility for employees should collective bargaining be restored in the future;
• Allow for extension of governance rights to all employees at the institution;
• Minimize the impact on and disruption of current academic staff governance practices, policies, and procedures (which are highly functional and effective and are the result of decades of effort, thought, rigorous debate, and careful consideration);
• Ensure that all employees at the institution are provided voice through either governance processes or collective bargaining (should collective bargaining be restored to fuller form in the future);
• Reduce class distinctions among employee groups by ensuring governance rights are extended to all employees and that governance bodies reflect the nature of the work, the nature of the work experience, and workplace challenges/issues for the staff members represented by their respective governance bodies;
• Allow use of suggestions from the Titling, Compensation, Benefits, and Performance Management Teams to address current inequities and barriers to advancement; and
• Ensure that a concerted and systematic effort would be made to obtain, analyze, and assess data that would predict both the intended and potentially unintended consequences of any structural changes in employee categorization at the university, including but not limited to the alternative recommendation proposed here.

ASEC would be glad to meet with university administrators, HR Design Work Teams and staff, and the Employee Categories Team leadership to share and discuss their review of this draft recommendation if desired. ASEC encourages the HR Design Project leadership and Employee Categories Team to obtain and utilize data from the institution to provide support and justification for any subsequent employee categories recommendations that may be made, including the one we have proposed.

Recruitment and Assessment

1. An online application system is a great tool for the majority of our applicants. However, there are still significant numbers of people who may not have easy access to the Internet. We must provide alternatives for those without this access.
2. Recruitment represents the primary way to increase employee diversity on campus, but diversity did not appear to be seriously addressed in this report. UW–Madison needs to take steps to ensure we make every attempt to find, hire, and retain candidates who bring a range of experiences and identities to the university community. There are many ways to work towards increasing our diversity. For example, PVLs should be carefully crafted to include elements such as “demonstrated experience working with diverse groups of people” or “demonstrated capacity to work with people from a variety of countries and cultures.”
3. ASEC recommends mandatory training for all members of hiring committees. This would include guidance on asking appropriate interview questions, steering away from our internal biases, etc. For instance, Dean Gary Sandefur requires that those serving on interview committees in the College of Letters and Science attend WISELI training for search committees.
4. While ASEC is not opposed to all internal hiring and recruitment, we do believe that it should be used sparingly and only in specific instances. The following areas need careful consideration because of their possible impact on our community:
   • Diversity: As a historically white-dominated campus, the internal hire option promotes hiring from within an organization that will not increase the diversity of our staff.
   • Other institutional models: The MATC model and other institutional models should be examined to determine how this practice impacts their community and whether there are lessons that UW–Madison can learn from their internal hiring experiences.
   • Cronyism: Often, internal recruiting supports hiring one’s friends instead of hiring the best candidates.
   • Eligibility: The report states that those who were terminated or whose position was eliminated are eligible for an internal hire for one year. Employees who were terminated for performance issues and employees who do not pass their probation should not be considered for internal hire. Only employees whose position was eliminated due to budgetary constraints or program redirection and not for performance issues should be considered for internal hire.
   • University service: University service of not less than three to five years should be an eligibility requirement for internal recruiting. Internal hiring should be used for employees with a track record of at least acceptable or at best excellent performance reviews.
5. In regard to references to “competencies,” the use of the term “mindsets” is problematic in that an employer in general can only require certain behaviors of its employees and cannot require employees to have particular “attitudes, beliefs, values, perceptions, etc.” that may affect those behaviors. The use of “mindsets” in a competency-based system could also lead to hiring and retaining only those who are “like us” (“us” being the hiring and evaluative authorities), thereby potentially reducing campus diversity and reinforcing power and privilege structures/systems at the institution. We also are concerned that the use of the mindset as a competency could lead to inappropriate questions during the interview process.
6. For direct hiring (page 7), “Other” is listed as an eligibility category. This should be more clearly defined or, more likely, eliminated. Additional legitimate exceptions can be added in the future should the need arise. In addition, the category of rehired annuitants should be annotated to conform with the current rehired annuitant policy.
7. While the recruitment recommendations are extremely fleshed out and detailed, the assessment recommendations are less so. ASEC would like to see more details in the assessment piece.

Titling

1. ASEC supports the recommendation that the university undertake a job classification study structured around functional areas (“job families”), and ASEC stresses that many of the acknowledged issues, questions and grey areas reported in the draft could be much more fully addressed with empirical data.
2. ASEC believes the draft is uneven and confusing in its explanation of how flexibility would solve current titling, compensation, and advancement issues. The draft needs more clarification and on how we could institute flexibility in compensation while at the same time building a unified, campus-wide set of rules and categories (job families, levels, and working descriptions). Further, no evidence was offered as to why broad- banding would not work except that it might promote variability (that is, flexibility), which paradoxically is the team’s most desired quality in a new system.
3. ASEC believes the draft recommendations purposefully avoid the important “job title” issue of the direct overlap between duties and responsibilities (research, teaching and grant acquisition, management and fulfillment) by faculty and Category B staff such as scientists, researchers, and lecturers.
4. ASEC believes the draft fails to address the reality that, by design, the current and recommended HR system embraces titling limits. Critically, those limits create compensation limits, which in turn lead to compensation stagnation (i.e., situations in which individuals have no compensation-related promotional opportunities available). Stagnation occurs internally when talent and high performance demand early career promotion and when market competition requires top-of-the-range compensation to retain or recruit top talent. In both cases structural limits to compensation create an environment that limits the university’s ability to retain or recruit seasoned, talented individuals with significant stores of intellectual and/or institutional capital in favor of early and mid-career employees.

Last year, I wrote extensively about efforts led by former Chancellor Biddy Martin and her administration, donors, and alumni to privatize (or at least semi-privatize) the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  That effort was partially successful, for while Martin and colleagues failed to separate Madison from the rest of the UW System, or gain authority over tuition setting, they did succeed in getting Madison the authority to redesign its human resources system.  This new “flexibility” was praised by many on campus, including staff, faculty, and students, who recognize that the current bureaucracy is not working, especially for those outside of administration.

So, this year the Human Resource Design Project has been advertised as a tremendous opportunity, hard won, and far better than the alternative — the status quo.  Perhaps.  But few reforms are without consequence, and the recommendations recently offered by the working teams in HR Design suggest this case is no exception.  In fact, the potential long-term effects of this redesign process may result in an very different university culture, one that is far less progressive than Madison has historically been known for.  Instead, the recommendations will likely aggressively speed-up Madison’s transformation (I’d say descent) into a market-driven institution focused first and foremost on serving its paying customers.

Some specifics of the recommendations have been discussed over at Sifting and Winnowing and so I direct you to read the details there.  For example, the recommendations include combining the currently unionized classified staff and academic staff into one.  As severals members of the HR working teams point out, this has significant implications for the protections held by unionized workers: “If the state legislature does not amend these statutes, the combining formerly classified staff–the custodians, the office secretaries, financial specialists–into the employee category academic staff will take away the few remaining collective bargaining rights that they have fought and bargained for about 50 years.”  Both the classified staff and the academic staff object to this recommendation.

Another recommendation focuses on the distribution of employee pay based on labor market analyses. As members of the Wisconsin University Union point out, this can mean many things– some resulting in even lower pay for UW-Madison workers.  ”There is no standard labor market for any group or individual occupations (with the exception of building trades). There are often valid arguments to be made for or against choosing one group over another. However, choice of a particular labor market as the standard will frequently determine the result.”  Crucially, the current recommendations say nothing about providing cost of living increases to all employees, nor is there any consideration of years of experience with good performance.

Furthermore, the proper implementation of these recommendations will likely grow the size of central administration — not reduce it.  National studies indicate that growth in central administrations are the source of much of the increasing costs of college attendance, so we need to pay special attention here.  According to Joel Rogers, professor of Sociology, “Done properly, the task of specifying the real human capital requirements of hundreds of UW job titles; identifying jobs with the same requirements in external labor markets; collecting all relevant data on their compensation from private employers; and doing all this continuously enough to capture relevant changes, job titles, compensation practices, and labor market boundaries and participants is a massive amount of work.”

Finally, despite promises to the contrary, these recommendations involve cuts to employee compensation.  Specifically, academic staff will see their vacation benefits reduced.  As ASEC has pointed out, “newly employed academic staff will lose nearly 52 hours of vacation/personal time under this proposal. Children attending MMSD have 16 days of vacation that do not coincide with the UW’s current holiday schedule, which means a single parent would have four days of vacation left (after caring for her/his child when local schools are not in session).”  And yet UW claims that employees will not move backwards under the Redesign?

Now, to UW’s credit, this has been a somewhat transparent process.  Many public forums have been held, and there are many ways to provide input.  The 11 working groups on this effort involved many people– however, a closer look indicates that the vast majority (perhaps 2/3) are people currently in HR in the administration– there were not many faculty or union-represented workers involved.  Participation even among those on the work groups has been reportedly hampered by meeting times occurring early in the morning (e.g. before childcare begins) and during work hours.

Moreover, there has also been a continuation of last spring’s approach to talking to campus members– with administrators telling us what is “important” and “smart” without providing hard facts about the evidence on why.  Where does this proposed structure of titles come from? Where is the data regarding the effects of this sort of market-driven approach versus alternatives?  There is very little data given anywhere to back up the contentions in the recommendations, despite the very expensive contributions made by the Huron Consulting firm, hired under Martin to assist with this work.  The rhetorical approach is led by Robert Lavigna, who speaks about the importance of ensuring that the new system can attract and retain “the best talent.”  He utilizes the language of “flexibility”, “efficiency,” “effective.”  He promises a “greater connection between compensation and performance.”  In other words he talks a  lot like Biddy Martin, and others like her who are bringing business practices to education.

Thus, one key thing that the HR Redesign highlights is that the neoliberal politics embodied in Biddy Martin are not hers alone, and that she is indicative of a broader market-driven culture amongst those who surrounded and hired her, which continues to prevail in today’s UW-Madison (and indeed globally).  This recommendations were issued, and are being systematically advanced, despite her departure.  That is something we all must pay close attention to, as these political maneuverings will likely continue to shape the next stages in Madison’s development- especially the upcoming chancellor search.  Who will be in charge there? What “facts” will we be provided? What role will faculty, staff, and students play, relative to the roles played by WARF, donors, alumni, and administrators?

A thoughtful approach to considering the desirability of the marketization of Madison requires our community think about (1) What are the full set of alternative options under consideration? (2) What evidence is being presented about the likely intended and unintended consequences of each option? and (3) Who exactly stands to benefit, and in what ways, from each option?

Notably, these are not the kinds of questions Huron (our highly-paid consultant) is known for asking and answering. Instead, Huron emphasizes a one-directional model in which administration directs the activities of faculty and staff.  Laura Yaeger, VP at Huron, has said that “universities are getting a better understanding of what activities add value to students and stakeholders while  providing clearer guidelines for staff and faculty about which programs and activities should be supported.”   Does that sound like shared governance to you?  Who are those stakeholders?

We are told that once again, this is our only choice. Don’t listen.  This Redesign is neoliberalism at its finest, justifying marketization as a form of self-defense, redefining all interactions within the educational institution as essentially business relationships. We, the faculty and staff and our traditional protections, are being identified as the obstacle to market-based efficiencies.  The goal is to make UW-Madison less dependent on us.  This gives private investors greater opportunities to profit from state expenditure, while influencing the form and content of education. And it makes business and university administrators the main partnership, redefining student-professor relations.

It is imperative that educators across UW-Madison begin to understand and draw attention to how funding priorities, public-private partnerships, tuition and fees, cost-benefit analysis, performance indicators, curriculum changes, and new technologies change the content of academic work and learning, and how they collectively arise from global efforts to discipline academic labor for capital. The changes to Madison’s human resources system, and to its operations more broadly, are intimately linked to employment opportunities in Dane County and elsewhere, and to the kinds of education and services we deliver to the state.  If we are going to be market-driven in how we educate and serve Wisconsin, what we provide will be undoubtedly more unequally distributed.  Everyone should have something to say about that. As Lavigna has said “This system will affect everyone on this campus.”  He’s serious. You need to pay attention.

PLEASE: Send your feedback on HR Design to hrdesign@news.wisc.edu

Sara Goldrick-Rab
Associate Professor,
Educational Policy Studies

In the 2011-2013 state biennial budget, the Joint Finance Committee granted UW-Madison the authority to create a new personnel system in Human Resources. This legislation implicitly acceded to the creation of a public authority model that had sparked contentious debate about the relationship between UW-Madison and the state in the past year. Currently, eleven work teams are drafting recommendations for a new human resources system through the HR Design Project.

To ensure that readers understand what is occurring, it is essential to define a few key terms about employment on campus. Classified staff, or public employees hired through the civil service system, include blue-collar workers, technical workers, clerical workers, and the trades. Many classified staff were unionized before the implementation of Act 10. Academic staff are also public employees in UW System but are “unique to higher education” as defined in state statute. They include non-faculty lecturers, researchers, many administrators, and academic advisors. Academic staff are not subject to the same civil service system rules as classified staff and have been protected under statutory governance rights since the mid-1980s.

One noteworthy and perhaps soon-to-be notorious recommendation comes from the Employee Categories Work Team. This group has proposed to dissolve classified staff status and combine those workers with academic staff. What does this mean? Not only did Act 10 and the 2011-2013 biennial budget reduce the scope of collective bargaining rights to one compensation issue, wages, it also stripped faculty and staff in UW System of the statutory right to collectively bargain. If the state legislature does not amend these statutes, the combining formerly classified staff–the custodians, the office secretaries, financial specialists–into the employee category academic staff will take away the few remaining collective bargaining rights that they have fought and bargained for about 50 years.

The Employee Categories Work Team voted to explore this proposal because of two perceived benefits. First, it extends statutory governance rights to formerly classified staff. However, a proposal that retains a “classified staff” category and expands governance through university policy to this category can still allow for collective bargaining. The expansion of governance rights through university policy also may strengthen the diversity on many campus committees. Furthermore, governance rights are inherently weaker than bargaining rights because governance lacks contractual rights and are even perceived to be advisory by faculty and staff leadership. (ASM, however, disagrees.)

Second, the Employee Categories Work Team sought to improve workplace climate by reducing the “caste system” that currently exists between classified and academic staff, but disparities in recruitment, compensation, and benefits based on category primarily contribute to the caste system, rather than which category is marked on employee files. We do not believe that the dissolution of the classified category will mend historical issues in disparities in compensation and benefits. Furthermore, erecting barriers to collective bargaining for 5,500 employees who have already taken a pay cut this year because of Act 10’s hike in benefits contributions certainly will not improve workplace climate. The preservation of a civil service system, which prevents favoritism and the caste system that arises from favoritism, does in fact improve workplace climate by promoting a more fair workplace.

As student appointees to HR Design Work Teams, we do not support the combining of classified staff and academic staff. We realize that collective bargaining rights, as they currently stand after Act 10, are incredibly weak, and that “advisory” shared governance rights are, at best, a temporary solution to diminished bargaining rights and do not constitute a long-term answer to restoring their strength. But we also hope that the state’s mistake of greatly reducing collective bargaining rights will be reversed in the near future.

How do we ensure that classified staff, formerly protected by bargaining rights, have rights in the workplace right now and can regain their bargaining rights in the shortest possible amount of time after statutory change? How do we protect the current and future bargaining rights of university employees? We urge the Employee Categories Work Team pursue their mission to protect the current and future bargaining rights by preserving an employee category for workers represented by unions. To diminish the presence of a “caste system,” we recommend extending governance through university policy as well as reforming policy barriers to moving between classified and academic staff, rather than eliminating “classified staff” as well as their bargaining rights. While students want to end the caste system and improve workplace culture, the recommendation of the Employee Categories Work Team is not the solution.

Kevin Walters, member of HR Design Advisory Committee
Beth Huang, member of HR Design Employee Categories Work Team
Joshua Brazee, member of HR Design Benefits Work Team
Michael Mirer, member of HR Design Compensation Work Team
Allie Gardner, former chair of the Associated Students of Madison
Adrienne Pagac, Co-President of the Teaching Assistants Association
Alex Hanna, Co-President of the Teaching Assistants Association
Leland Pan, Dane County Board Supervisor, former member of HR Design Advisory Committee

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.

As college students, we’ve been trained to back up our arguments so we waited to hear the statistics, data and research that members of the task force would use to argue for major changes in state law, not the least concerning of which is the flexibility to increase tuition, which threatens access to a college degree for all Wisconsinites.

Unfortunately, I cannot relay any statistics, data or research presented by the members. None was provided. However, at least 10 different anecdotes were given by task force members that day. Who do these anecdotes come from? Where did Mohs get his ideas of what students are like these days? They’re not from any study I’ve seen.

The studies I have seen show that more than three-quarters of students say they can’t afford to go to school without working. Another study documents how students paying their way through school would need to work 70 hours a week just to make ends meet.

At UW-Madison, Wisconsinites are paying tuition that has doubled since 2001. The average amount of debt that students graduate with has increased by 30% in the past decade. The average master’s student in 2010 graduated with nearly $40,000 in debt.

Administrators argue that increasing tuition is the only means to deal with severe state budget cuts that threaten the quality of education. They claim that increasing tuition will allow for increased financial aid, but even as financial aid has gone up, student debt has continued to skyrocket and middle-class families have been cut out of the university. Graduation rates and retention rates continue to be average. Increasing tuition, especially at a time when families can’t afford to pay more, will result in sticker shock that keeps away those who need a college degree the most.

The Task Force on UW Restructuring should be using its time to refocus the state and UW on the needs of Wisconsin students and families. It should be working to open the university doors to all Wisconsinites, instead of protecting the prestige of UW. It should be focused on rebuilding the relationship between our communities and the universities in them and reprioritizing public investment in UW.

We need structures in place to solicit involvement (not just feedback) from students, faculty, staff and community members from small business owners to farmers and middle school teachers. Administrators should only be granted the ability to increase tuition if they can demonstrate it won’t destroy our ability to build a competitive 21st-century workforce.

Access is the priority, which means we need to set measurable criteria to even consider allowing for tuition increases. Tuition should not be allowed to increase unless it can be linked to a decrease in average student debt and an increase in the amount of low- and middle-income students being admitted and graduated.

There is plenty of work to do. The task force needs to stop offering anecdotes and starting doing its homework.

Clearly, the task force members don’t understand what our needs are in Wisconsin. Give the task force members your recommendation by writing to your state legislators about what they need to be doing to ensure that UW is serving its students and the state.

Allie Gardner, originally from Sun Prairie, is a junior at UW-Madison and is chair of the Associated Students of Madison.  This article, which originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel,  was reprinted here with her permission.

Truth be told — and I doubt that many of the commission members would disagree, many of the options cited in the report are more or less analogous to those available to shipwreck survivors stranded in a lifeboat far out at sea:

• “As shown by the Greek philosopher Zeno,  scarce rations may be extended indefinitely by distributing exactly half of what remains on each successive day.”
• “Consumption of leather articles such as belts, wallets, and shoes  provides a welcome, if temporary, relief from the physical sensations of starvation.”
• “Even when drinking water has run out, under no circumstances should survivors succumb to the temptation to drink seawater or urine.  Those who disregard this advice may partially mask the flavor by mixing in a tablespoon of  Crystal Light Raspberry Ice Tea mix.”
• “When rescue remains an unlikely prospect even as morale and physical well-being continue to plummet, take a discreet look around you and identify the fellow survivors least likely to be in any condition to put up a spirited fight.  As a rough guide, one such individual will adequately feed ten for several days, or up to a week in cooler weather.”
• “Sleep with one eye open.”

Please note:  these were not actual commission recommendations.

One actual commission recommendation in particular, however, stands out as providing more than just superficial and temporary relief.  Indeed it was precisely this recommendation that was singled out by “On Campus” reporter Deborah Ziff at the Wisconsin State Journal.  Paraphrased, it goes like this:

• “Increasing the percentage of out-of-state students admitted to the University can significantly increase total tuition revenue without the need for politically untenable increases in tuition rates.”

Yes!  This is self-evidently true, and in recognition of its potential importance for the future of the university, I wish this option had been as prominent in the actual commission report as it was in Ms. Ziff’s very short article.  I therefore would like to take this opportunity to propose the following refinement:

1. To be more in line with our national peer universities, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and  the University of Minnesota should agree to terminate their unusual tuition reciprocity arrangement and to charge full out-of-state tuition to each other’s residents.
2. The above reciprocity arrangement should then be replaced by a new one in which the two universities each agree to reject their own in-state applicants while giving preference to those from the other state.

The logical result of this arrangement will be that UW-Madison’s student body will soon be made up entirely of Minnesota residents and other out-of-state students, all paying $25,421 tuition per year rather than the $9,671 paid by in-state students, while Wisconsin students will all go to Minnesota and elsewhere.

If we conservatively estimate that 25,000 in-state students currently on the UW-Madison campus would soon be replaced by out-of-state students paying $15,750 per head more, that represents $394M in new revenue to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  All without raising tuition rates.

The logic and spirit of this proposal are completely consistent both with recent trends in  state support for our university and with reason 3 in the very first paragraph of this official explanation of UW-Madison admission policies.  I cannot imagine why it would not be universally embraced by politicians and administrators alike as an innovative and far-reaching solution to the university’s current budget woes.

• Monday, March 12, 5-6 PM. Memorial Union.
• Monday, March 19, 12-1 PM. Union South

Background: Last week there was a flurry of comments, press releases, and TV appearances from the Governor and his staff asserting that they were not thinking about doing anything at all (indeed, “zero”) to the WRS system.

The denials (here) focused on Walker’s “study” of two WRS questions: Should WRS’s current defined benefit program be replaced with a defined contribution plan (such as a 401-K)? Should participation in the program be voluntary?

The study, which will ostensibly be conducted by the department secretaries of administration and employee trust funds and the director of state employment relations, is due for release by June 30, 2012.

Over the past month or so, there has been increased attention and indeed, alarm, about the study and more importantly, the legislation that may follow it. This anxiety is indicated by a chain e-mail reported to reach 30,000+ recipients, on-line petitions and a surfeit of misinformation, most notably, that the pensions of current retirees are in danger as a result of potential changes in retirement system.

Apparently, given the unexpectedly severe political repercussions resulting from the repeal of public employee collective bargaining rights, the Governor and his advisors decided that stoking a firestorm over threats to destroy the retirement system a few months before a recall election might not be a wise strategy.

However, many of his statement belie the denials.

In a WISC-TV (local) interview the Governor said, (the pension program should be) “a balance of protecting hardworking taxpayers and providing whatever we might provide in a respectful and responsible way.” And “for people in the pension system right now, I can’t anticipate anything in the future that wouldn’t allow them to continue in that pension system if that’s what they prefer to do.”

“Providing whatever we might provide...”? Sounds quite charitable. The second underlined portion however, refers to those who are currently receiving a pension. However, he is also saying, all bets are off for current employees.

In a 1/15/12 interview on a very right-wing blog, “The Daily Caller” edited by Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas (here) Walker said, “I think any of us who are honest understand if you don’t get legacy costs under control, it’s a virus that will eat up and eat up and eat up more and more of your budget. It’s the same problem that Chrysler and GM got into, and state and local governments have to fix it.”

The statement is so packed with misinformation, innuendo and fear-mongering, it’s hard to take apart. Most notable is the use of “virus” metaphor as a descriptor of the public pension program. After all, you know what we do with viruses. We kill them.

Some of the seeming-denials and quasi-explanations from Walker and his aides are described in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s “Politifact” (Feb 26, 2012) here In the article, Administration Department Secretary Huebsch notes the uproar in other states when workers were forced into a 401-K style plan.  Huebsch said “there is no intention at this point of forcing anybody into a system they wouldn’t want to be a part of” and “that’s why we would give them the option.”

While one can parse the meaning of “there is no intention” or “at this point” the real issue is “forcing anybody into a system they wouldn’t want to be a part of.” Remember that the study will review two options: offering or converting to a defined contribution plan and making participation in the Wisconsin Retirement System voluntary.

For Walker, et. al. moving employees from a defined benefit to defined contribution plan has the potential to provide billions of dollars (literally) in fees to financial management companies. This would be a financial and ideological benefit to GOP leadership. It would also reduce the state payroll of a few hundred state employees. Still, the state will still have to make a pension contribution of about 6%.

The second option, making the system voluntary could generate potentially enormous savings. These savings would be accrued because a significant segment of the workforce would opt out of the retirement plan. Why? Consider that last year, lower-paid state workers (<$30 K) with family-plan insurance had salary reductions of approximately 15%. Many dropped their health insurance because they could not afford the co-premium. Now, if given the option of ending their retirement contribution and retaining 6% of their pay, they would quickly grasp the desperately needed money. It will not only be the lowest pay-tier of employees who would decline to participate. Add to their number, many young employees who cannot foresee the need for a pension, those in a financial squeeze and those who would rather “do it themselves.”

If one-third of state employees drop out of the system, this would be a savings of nearly $80 million per year to the state.  But, it would also be a structural assault on the retirement system as income sharply declined. Actuarial assumptions that have guided the system will have to be trashed. This loss of income coupled with a rush of retirees in 2011-12, along with many fewer and lower paid replacements create perhaps not a perfect storm but a battering of the system.

This is exactly what Walker wants.

For background material on the conservative origins of Walker’s pension initiative are here and here

A brief and fact-based rebuttal from ETF is worth reading: here

David A.
Wisconsin University Union

In this political climate, the Faculty Senate, Academic Staff Assembly, and Associated Students of Madison Student Council have all passed resolutions support a new social compact between UW-Madison and the state of Wisconsin. The new social compact endorses a renewed financial commitment to funding UW System from the state in exchange for the fulfillment of UW System and UW-Madison’s mission to provide a quality, accessible education for all Wisconsinites. In passing this legislation, the three shared governance bodies have voiced vehement concern about the fiscal crisis that UW-Madison and UW System now face and have asked to be part of the solution.

In the Academic Staff Assembly, one member raised the quintessential question whenever a deliberative body takes a stance on an issue over which they have no direct power: what does passage of this resolution actually do? Why should we pass this value-driven resolution if we lack the teeth to enforce it?

My answer to the gentleman who spoke at the Academic Staff Assembly is simple: give the new social compact some teeth. The power of lofty resolutions such as the new social compact derives from its ability to be shared. As students, staff, faculty, and community members of the great institutions of UW System, we can empower these ideals of access to quality higher education and enrichment of communities across Wisconsin by infusing our stories of why UW-Madison matters to us. To make these resolutions relevant and powerful, we must share our stories with state legislators and encourage our neighbors to do the same.

Students are doing just this. On March 6, join the United Council of UW Students for the statewide lobby day. United Council will begin the statewide lobby day with a press conference to advocate for the Wisconsin student agenda, one major component of the social compact that all members of the UW-Madison community now officially support.

-BPH

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.

Undergraduate education at UW–Madison is paid for by a combination of general program revenue (GPR)—derived from state taxes—and tuition, paid by students and families. In 2001, GPR funding for UW-Madison was $370 million and tuition revenue was $277 million. Ten years later, GPR has fallen to just $279 million, while tuition revenue increased to $400 million (all figures adjusted to 2010 dollars). As a result, tuition increased from $5044 per year in 2001 (2010 dollars) to $8987 in 2010. (These numbers do not include the $47.5 million cut imposed in the 2011 budget.) The state also gives UW money for special purposes, but these funds cannot be used directly in providing undergraduate education.

When the state fails to support the university, the university gets the needed revenue by charging students and their families more. This is a pretty straightforward relationship, but I am not sure that the implications are always clear. When the state cuts the budget and tuition increases, fewer students from middle-class and financially pressed families can afford to attend UW–Madison.

Here at CALS, we are especially aware of the effects on Wisconsin’s rural families. Rural per capita income is 20 percent less than in metropolitan areas, and 40 percent of CALS students demonstrate significant financial need. What is the future for CALS if a greater proportion of kids interested in careers in agriculture and natural resources cannot afford to come to Madison? Indeed, what is the future of Wisconsin’s rural communities?

We also can’t pretend that the quality of undergraduate education won’t suffer. Less revenue means fewer degree programs, especially in production agriculture, and fewer courses dedicated to agriculture. The time it takes to finish a degree will lengthen. And it will be harder for people with moderate incomes to afford to come here.

Supporting our agricultural communities means supporting public higher education in Wisconsin. The UW System is the provider of affordable, accessible opportunities to earn bachelor’s degrees, and we at CALS are the provider of the specialized knowledge needed to excel in careers in agriculture, natural resources and the life sciences. When state cuts make it harder for rural kids to attend CALS, the economic vitality of our rural communities is diminished.

How we fund a college education at UW is up to the people of Wisconsin—and in any policy debate it’s important to have all facts on the table. My hope is that, as we move forward, undergraduate education gets the attention and resources that our young people and our state deserve.

Thanks to all of you for your support of our college.

On Wisconsin.

William F. Tracy
Interim Dean
College of Agricultural and Life Sciences

Reprinted with permission from WALSAA Express December 2011

In brief, a defined contribution (DC) plan is one in which the benefit is directly determined by the amount of principle and interest contributed by the annuitant. 401-K’s are the most common forms of DC plan instruments. They are typically managed by private investment firms.

A defined benefit (DB) plan is based on a formula of salary as a multiple of years of service and other constant factors. Our DB plan is managed by a state agency, Employee Trust Funds.

In the past twenty years, there has been a massive shift in the private sector from DB plans to DC plans. At the same time there is a movement spearheaded by American Legislative Exchange Committee to remove public employees from DB plans and shift them to DC plans. Given the fact that the WRS now holds $80 billion in assets this would be a huge windfall to “money managers” who would oversee the individual accounts.

This proposal now being “studied” by the Secretaries of the Departments of Administration, Employee Trust Funds and Employment Relations is to report to the Governor and the Joint Committee on Finance by June 30, 2012. This is significant because it bypasses the Joint Survey Committee on Retirement and Pensions. By law, the legislature cannot consider a bill in regard to pensions that is not authored by the Joint Survey Committee and accompanied by an actuarial report. But, of course, the law can be changed.

The Wisconsin Retirement System is considered to be one of the best in the nation with obligations funded at over 99%. Nonetheless, it would not take many changes to begin set the wheels of a crisis in motion. There are many potential scenarios:

• One scenario already underway is the sharp increase in retirements prior to July 2011. State employees (non-University) retirements tripled from 2010 to 2011. School district and UW retirements doubled in the same period. Given budget cutbacks many of these employees were not replaced and those that were are commonly paid at half the salary of the prior position incumbent. This is a huge unanticipated outflow of pension funds that will not be replaced with a comparable receipt of new contributions for many years.
• Wages and salaries continue to be frozen or decline among public employees providing less revenue into the fund. With investment income flat or at best highly unstable, the capacity of the WRS to meet obligations continues to decline.
• As we approach summer, Walker (presuming he continues to be Governor) announces another budget shortfall. As he did in the last budget, he proposes to “borrow” hundreds of millions (last time it was $70 million) from the pension fund. It will, of course, be for a good cause such as paying for employees’ health insurance premiums (as it was the last time). Thus, in the face of swelling retiree rolls, reduced contributions due to lower salaries and fewer employees and a stagnant market for investments, the fund capacity to meet near-term obligations is sharply diminished.

The Governor and the leaders of Joint Finance, particularly Rep. Vos are ready to meet this crisis head on. And the solution will address two problems: 1) the inability of the public agency, ETF, to meet the state’s obligation to retirees and 2) the unfair inequity between public employees who enjoy a lavish and wealthy retirement (insert here a factoid about married, masters prepared high school teachers with 30 years of service and have a combined pension of $65,000/year) compared to those in the private sector (insert here numerous facts on the plight of most in the private sector, e.g. one-third live solely on their social security payment, the remainder have an average value of $50,000 in savings + pension, etc.).

The barrage of policy attacks is being ramped up. The Wall St Journal published one of many attacks on public employee pensions on 1/4/2012 and offered the alternative of defined contribution plans. A general review of the model of the attack by the author of the article can be found here. If the “money management” industry was unable to get its hands on the social security trust funds, the next biggest treasure are public employee pensions.

Some organizing in response to this attack is underway. A few meetings of retirees and current public employees have been held around the state. Though there has been little discussion of the issue on campus, there is no doubt that there will be substantial concern when this information is disseminated and the study report is released.

To receive more information on the effort, contact powrs2012@gmail.com or wiununion@gmail.com.

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?