OPINION & EDITORIAL
Covering the gap
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Also by Badger Herald Editorial Board:
- A security fee-for-all (December 11, 2007)
- Farewell, Chancellor (December 10, 2007)
- $$FC (December 6, 2007)
- In a bind (December 5, 2007)
- Entitlement Town (December 4, 2007)
Related Stories:
- A mixed review for the Regents (October 14, 2003)
- Regent accountability bill needed for students (September 25, 2003)
- Politics as usual (July 3, 2003)
- Wiley's real stance (November 3, 2004)
- Bad timing, bad politics (February 5, 2002)
by Badger Herald Editorial Board
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
March 5, the UW System Board of Regents discussed a proposal to increase financial aid to some of its poorest students. We applaud this initiative while again calling on state legislative leaders to stop balancing their budget on the backs of hardworking students.
As we have noted on several occasions, the recent biennial budget approved by the state Legislature makes cuts — the deepest in its history — to Wisconsin’s system of public higher education. The regents and other System officials, dealing with a $250 million loss, had no choice but to raise tuition and make serious cuts in other areas. Those schools hardest hit by these hikes have been UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee.
This decrease in funding to the UW System is certainly not new, as several administrations and legislatures, regardless of party inclination, have consistently cut funding to one of Wisconsin’s most important economic engines. As Chancellor Wiley noted in an interview with this board, the taxpayer-funded portion of the UW-Madison budget has decreased from 43 percent in 1973 to just below 21 percent in 2003.
The net result has been a decrease in enrollment among students from lower- and middle- income families. According to Wiley, the median family income in Wisconsin is a little more than $45,000 a year. Yet for the families of the class of 2007, it is almost $90,000 a year. And in a report given to the regents Friday, 14.7 percent of freshmen entering the UW System came from families making less than $30,000 per year in 1992. By 2002, that number had fallen to 11.2 percent. And since 1998, there has been a 15 percent drop in enrollment by this economic group — one of the highest drops in the country.
The price of an education in the UW System has increased to such a point that public education is no longer the vehicle of social and economic mobility that it once was. The regents recognize this, and their current proposal would increase financial aid to the poorest students by covering the real dollar gap in tuition increases. For example, if tuition increases such that it constitutes a $700 increase on the bill, students whose families earn less than $30,000 per year will get an additional $700 in financial aid.
We applaud this proposal, and we urge the regents to do everything in their power to bring it to fruition. However, even they recognize this as a temporary solution.
To end the exclusion of Wisconsin’s poorest students as well as restore the System as a vehicle of economic mobility, the state must stop balancing budgets by cutting the UW System. According to budget documents prepared by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the only real dollar cuts made to any of the state’s top five spending items in the last budget were to the UW System. That fact is completely unacceptable. There are other places to cut the state budget - its universities should come last.
The regents have taken a positive step by proposing a creative solution to fix real problems. Let’s hope the state Legislature will follow suit.
