Opinion: Editorial
Initiative deserves support
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Also by Badger Herald Editorial Board:
- The Invisible Man Award: Wyndham Manning (May 7, 2009)
- The People's Choice Award: Jacqueline Hitchon et. al (May 7, 2009)
- The Lifetime Achievement Award: ASM (May 7, 2009)
- Honest representation (May 5, 2009)
- Junger for ASM Chair (May 5, 2009)
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Although increasing tuition is always a touchy subject among students, Martin deserves credit for identifying the needs of the university and putting together a plan to address them. Even more so, she deserves credit for working to make this plan clear and acceptable to all parties involved. Although the list of administrators and alumni is impressive, Martin’s work to convince the general student body is what has been most important. After all, we are the ones who will foot the bill.
Even with the $1,000 added onto in-state tuition by the fourth year,
This status comes at a price, however, and we cannot expect to remain a top university if we do not address a number of glaring deficiencies. Martin’s plan includes hiring more faculty (and doing more to retain them), improving academic advising and alleviating bottlenecked courses. If better advising or more available courses allow you to graduate in four years instead of 4 1/2, this proposal will have more than paid for itself. This area of the initiative is particularly well-defined, with plans detailing hypothetical plans for TAs and faculty to be hired per department.
That being said, other areas of the initiative deserve more scrutiny. The increase in need-based financial aid has been controversial, but given that Wisconsin ranks last out of Big Ten schools in amount of need-based financial aid awarded, the increase seems tolerable for supporters and skeptics. The plan is a much easier to swallow knowing a matching increase in alumni donations will accompany it. Indeed, many distinguished graduates seem particularly enthusiastic about the initiative as a whole.
While the faculty and financial aid portions of the initiative are relatively straightforward, the pedagogical and student services proposals are far from concrete. This is in part due to the fact that the majority of the specifics listed in an updated version of the plan were based on suggestions from the student body. Students have a chance to shape the direction of much of the funding from the initiative — if we want to, that is. These ideas and proposals will have to undergo a separate vetting process by a subcommittee made up of student representatives followed by the oversight committee of the entire initiative.
Which is good, because some of these ideas are completely unnecessary. Perhaps most redundantly useless among the list of possible student services is a plan to address alcohol abuse that is as grandiose as it is ill-conceived. Rather than a comprehensive treatment program targeted at those with a severe dependency, the university would sponsor alcohol-free alternative events and use “edgy” advertising techniques to discourage over-consumption of alcohol. The proposal might well garner dollars from private anti-drinking organization The Century Council, but that doesn’t mean the university needs to contribute student tuition to initiatives that already fail to discourage that behavior in its present form.
A suggestion to spend $500,000 on an ePortfolio program also caught our attention. Described by one advocate as “a living document,” it seems these portfolios amount to nothing more than an online collection of stuff you’ve done. Those who would take advantage of such system already use similar programs and those who have their work scattered across floors and under beds are unlikely to be swayed into organization by an ePortfolio. About as many people would use ePortfolio as those using WisCal now.
Some of the other services proposed do strike us as reasonable improvements: a center for transfer students is needed as current first-year programs don’t exactly target them; academic technology needs a funding boost for proper staffing to help build professor’s class sites and projects, but the infrastructure (i.e., Learn@UW) needs an overhaul at the same time.
The initiative is a well-thought out plan to address important issues within the university and improve its overall standing in the academic world. We know it’s not free, but we’re pretty sure it’s worth it.
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So students are supposed to believe that their raised tuition dollars are going to be met with donor contributions because Biddy “promised”? What is this, second grade? I hope she can follow through but my guess is donor money has dried up because of the recession. This plan completely lacks a guarantee that what Biddy says will actually happen, there is no accountibility and no decent measures for success.
“The increase in need-based financial aid has been controversial, but given that Wisconsin ranks last out of Big Ten schools in amount of need-based financial aid awarded, the increase seems tolerable for supporters and skeptics.”
This misrepresents the nature of the “skeptics” criticism. The controversy stems from the propriety of using tuition to support need-based financial aid. This is not a “skeptical” position, it’s an issue of justice. (e.g., Abolitionists were not “skeptics” of slavery.)
If using one student’s tuition to pay for another student’s education is unjust, how does pointing out that other schools are more unjust make the situation tolerable?
8:39: “my guess is donor money has dried up because of the recession.”
http://www.philanthropyjournal.org/resources/special-reports/fundraising/broken-economy-holds-fundraising-promise
Your guess is wrong.
Please be sure to take into account the effect this “initiative” will have on the demographics of the university. The school will soon be that less attractive to many students from out-of-state with perfectly good intentions and abilities. The school will attract a more stratified applicant pool (ie upper-class out of state students). I myself had the decision to attend a school just as good, if not better for my major back across the boarder. My selling point to my parents (and my wallet), was the attractive price tag. Sorry, Biddy, this isn’t what I signed up for.
It seems that whenever the Madison Initiative is mentioned, the annual 5.5% increase in tuition is left out. By the forth year of the initiative we are going to be paying a lot more than mentioned.
The statement that Wisconsin will still be an incredible value compared to other Big Ten schools does not take into account everthing. I highly doubt this statement includes the addition of state taxes. Wisconsin’s state taxes are high and a lot of that money goes to the University.
5.5% matches the rate of inflation…..
Great point 4:25 pm. I’m in the same situation. If tuition was 3 grand more when I applied, I would have taken my slightly larger scholarship to a similar school. Also consider that every intelligent middle class out of stater who is willing to take out loans to come here will be replaced by a below average student to whom money is no object.
Letting fewer out of state students isn’t an option either. Replacing out of state kids with in state ones will just further complicates our financial situation as tuition revenue falls.