OPINION & EDITORIAL
Dual disregard
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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:
- Doyle demands emphasis on education (August 31, 2007)
- Plan B (January 25, 2005)
- As long as we're talking budgets (February 9, 2005)
- College Democrats give Green failing grade for tuition hikes (September 28, 2006)
- Covering the gap (March 10, 2004)
by Badger Herald Editorial Board
Thursday, May 6, 2004
With the end of another academic year, this board must reiterate the importance of the quality of higher education. We find ‘striking’ parallels between the administration’s handling of the recent TAA walk-out and the state’s now long-standing disregard for the importance of public higher education in its own economic future.
Last year, the state legislature passed a biennial budget cutting the University of Wisconsin System by $250 million, the deepest in the system’s history. That cut, combined with those accrued for the 10 years prior, essentially forced the Regents’ hands on tuition. As a result, students saw their tuition bills increase by considerable margins, at least $700 per year for in-state students at UW.
Fewer and fewer residents of Wisconsin can now afford its leading University. According to Chancellor Wiley, the median income for a Wisconsin family is $45,000. Yet the average family income of this year’s class is almost twice that number. Is this the state legislature’s notion of the Wisconsin Idea?
Moreover, the budget situation forced administrators at system universities to cut classes, increase class sizes and set aside money to deal with future cuts.
That last tactic — the deliberate creation of reserves so as to counter future cuts — we find both prudent and alarming. Prudent, because UW administrators can expect more cuts and must take action to soften what are sure to be damaging blows. Alarming, because the state legislators responsible for making those cuts completely disregard the economic importance of the system to Wisconsin. In the last biennial budget, the UW system received 38 percent of the cuts to state spending. Yet the UW System only constitutes 9 percent of the overall budget while representing one of the best investments taxpayers can make. It seems state legislators have it in for the UW System — and for the future of the state.
Yet, given recent events regarding the TAA strike, we wonder if the current UW administration also fails to see the forest from the trees. The University, under pressure from the TAA, offered $300,000 from its own reserves — the same reserves meant to deal with future cuts — to sweeten the state’s contract offer. However, that money was never meant to help a state agency alleviate its own labor dispute.
Though the University has since retracted this offer, it seems the damage is done. The state legislature, already seething at any opportunity to cut the UW System for its own misguided reasons, now has a seemingly legitimate reason for doing so. If the UW administration complains it does not have the money to deal with future cuts, members of the state legislature will argue that Bascom was willing to spend an extra $300,000 to bail out the TAA. This could cause the legislature to seek even deeper cuts to the system during the next biennial budget.
In the end, the administration should have realized this dispute was not its problem, but the problem of the Office of State Employment Relations. The administration perceived this as its problem because of an illegal action pursued by members of the TAA. By even slightly giving in to that pressure, the administration has opened up its budget to more attacks by the state legislature.
This board certainly disapproves of the state legislature’s treatment of the higher education system. It threatens the future economic vitality of the state and the accessibility to public higher education for Wisconsin residents. However, the administration has likewise displayed a lack of forethought in dealing with the TAA. By expressing a willingness to spend more money on the labor dispute, it invites the state legislature to continue its irresponsible gouging. We remind UW administrators that the purse bearers at the other end of State Street hold the value of a UW degree in low regard.
