A study released Tuesday revealed state funding for the University of Wisconsin over the past 25 years has doubled, but it also found that universities and colleges are still not receiving as much as K-12 schools.
The study was conducted by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, a nonpartisan public-policy research firm.
The study showed between 1983 and 2007, state aid and tax credits for preliminary and secondary schools rose 320 percent, but funding for the University of Wisconsin System only rose 99 percent.
According to Chuck Pruitt, Board of Regents vice president, because K-12 education is funded by both state funding and property taxes, there is a lot of pressure for the state to increase its funding and decrease the amount of money property taxpayers must pay.
“The political pressure comes not only from students and parents who send their kids to K-12 but also from property tax payers,” Pruitt said.
The information for the study came from two sources — the annual state fiscal reports and a research organization that publishes comparative appropriation figures for the country, according to Todd Berry, Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance president.
Berry added the decision to conduct the research stemmed from his desire to establish more accurate data concerning state funding, often times misconstrued because of bantering between the UW System and the Legislature.
“Given the little bit of tit-for-tat that has been going on between the university and the state, since I often read things that are not correct, I thought it would be useful to recap the numbers of the state’s annual fiscal report,” Berry said.
According to David Giroux, UW System spokesperson, state universities and colleges need to make a case to the Legislature that higher education is the “way out of these economic times.”
“We need to increase the number of college-educated [citizens], grow per capita incomes and grow the high end jobs that will employ more college educated graduates in Wisconsin,” Giroux said.
While Giroux said the state investment in higher education is not keeping pace with other state funded entities, he added the reason for the lag in funding is due to the Legislature’s inability to focus directly on higher education funding.
“We are slipping, but I don’t think that’s been a conscious decision. It’s the fact of a very challenging time and conflicting priorities,” Giroux said.
According to Pruitt, the UW System, specifically UW-Madison, has done an “extraordinary” job of getting additional money from other sources such as endowments, financial aid and research dollars to keep tuition low when state funding is cut.
“I think everybody is working 24/7 to do that,” Pruitt said. “But I do not think there is any substitute for strong state support. It’s about trying to provide a general source of revenue that can be used for what the university needs. …Relying on other funds comes with strings attached.”
Giroux added students can also play a “prominent” role in helping to make sure the Legislature stays focused on funding for higher education institutions in the state.
“Lately, we hear students more and more focused on value. There is concern about reputation, ability to retain faculty. … I think students are becoming more and more sophisticated,” Giroux said. “They are becoming very effective advocates.”
