OPINION & EDITORIAL
Ties to state key for UW’s future
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by Gerald Cox
Monday, February 25, 2008
One of the enduring legacies Chancellor John Wiley will leave when he steps down in September is the increased non-state funding he has procured for our university. Our endowment has skyrocketed; over the Wiley years, we have joined an elite group of universities with endowments above $1 billion.
Our selectivity, and by extension, our status as an elite university continues to rise. This year, the University of Wisconsin has again experienced an increase in applications: The university has received 500 more applications at this time than at the same time last year. As such, an even smaller number of students will be admitted this year than last, and it may be the university’s first year with an acceptance rate below 50 percent. Should these trends continue, your UW degree may be worth more in a couple years than it is now.
As the state Legislature continues to decrease its investment in our university, and as private and non-state funds continue to pour in, our university is becoming, as a Newsweek article puts it, “publicly owned, but privately financed.” UW, like the University of Michigan and the University of California, is increasingly becoming a private university. But, don’t let the increased selectivity and financial independence get to your head. The financial partnership we have with our state, while growing increasingly rocky, is essential to ensure the affordability of a UW education.
In the 2004-05 school year, the state accounted for 20 percent of the university’s budget. A decade before then, state funds accounted for 29 percent of UW’s budget. Allow me to indulge the economist in me as I do some forecasting. In another 10 years, it’s entirely possible that state funds could account for only 10-15 percent of the university’s budget.
One of the larger issues our next chancellor faces will be the same issue that frustrated Mr. Wiley’s time here: a Legislature growing increasingly distant from the university.
Last year, as the Legislature stalled and our state was embarrassed to be distinguished as the last state in the Union to pass a budget, worried murmurs began to spread throughout Bascom Hall, and a strange ambiguity characterized the financial aid of a number of students. Severing ties with the Legislature might reduce the headaches associated with the uncertainty that comes with state funding, and would save taxpayers millions.
Tuition has more than doubled at UW in the last 10 years in the face of weakening state support. Further delinquency on the part of the Legislature will ensure this trend continues. If such trends continue, and students are destined to pick up a larger tab along with non-state sources, it just may make sense to go private.
However, in order to offset the revenue from state funds that would be lost with further steps toward privatization, the university would have to turn to other sources. Federal grants for research are just that — grants intended for research, and private funding is not meant to offset the cost of education.
We do have a $1 billion endowment to tap into, but the most likely source to see an increase would be in a student’s tuition. To replace the 20 percent of our budget currently provided by the state, tuition would need to be increased dramatically, further making Wisconsin’s poorest residents less likely to matriculate here.
A popular source of need-based aid is the state. With UW Provost Pat Farrell indicating his desire for substantially higher tuition rates, our partnership with the state will be crucial to keep tuition low, or to ensure there is adequate aid in the presence of the inevitable increases we will see in coming years. A move toward privatization, then, would possibly spell an end to an affordable college education at UW for Wisconsin residents.
UW’s next chancellor must have successes where Mr. Wiley did not. He or she must engage the Legislature in a way that ensures Wisconsin’s heritage of affordable education continues. An agreement could be reached for a promise from the state to honor one of its most valuable investments. A promise to provide 20 percent of UW-Madison’s budget, for instance, would be a powerful tool in preserving the affordability of education here, and ensuring that UW-Madison remains the state’s flagship university.
Statements like, “UW-Madison has the second-lowest tuition in the Big Ten,” shouldn’t be a cause for higher tuition. It should be a point of pride. The university and the Legislature should make sure it stays that way.
Gerald Cox (gcox@badgerherald.com) is a senior majoring in economics.
Anonymous (February 25, 2008 @ 12:53am):
"However, in order to offset the revenue from state funds that would be lost with further steps toward privatization, the university would have to turn to other sources. Federal grants for research are just that â grants intended for research, and private funding is not meant to offset the cost of education."
Michigan for example, does not REJECT federal/state funding. They just recognize that state funds aren't there, so they have better fund-raising and private donation systems. That keeps them afloat where UW is being screwed.
frank rojas (February 25, 2008 @ 10:46am):
It will never happen. The politicians in Wisconsin would rather pander to their low-brow base and continue to castigate the UW for all sorts of misdeeds from allowing free speech to paying professors salaries that are at the national market but far above what some millworker with a high school diploma earns as if this is somehow unfair and elitist. And don't bother telling them the UW will create more highly skilled jobs in the future. Most of those jobs will be around Madison and they won't be hiring ex millworkers.
Anonymous (February 25, 2008 @ 11:55am):
Gosh, I guess UW sucks if no one wants to give them money. Maybe I should try Minnesota next year.
Anonymous (February 27, 2008 @ 7:28pm):
The biggest challenge facing Wiley's replace-
ment is cleaning up the grade fraud scandal
in the UW Political Science department. If
that continues on as a problem, UW is doomed.
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