The start of the new year seems more like the start of a new era. The country not only elected a progressive Democrat to be our next president but also assertively rejected the legacy of Republican domination at the state level. Such developments were sorely needed at the University of Wisconsin, where years of neglect and broken promises have left the university bleeding away its resources, professors and reputation.
My initial hope for a reinvestment in this public university has since given way to outright disappointment. Near the end of the fall semester, Chancellor Biddy Martin hinted at her strategy for rebuilding the university’s funding and stature and appointed Michael Knetter, dean of the School of Business, to a position as “special assistant/liaison to the chancellor for long-term strategy and development.” According to Martin, “The financial model for public universities has undergone significant change over time. Like our peers, we rely increasingly on private sources of revenue and the proportion of our budget that comes from private sources will increase over time.” Martin suggests we should play this game of ever-increasing privatization strategically.
But given the enormous shift in statewide priorities after the election in November, why is the university administration pursuing the same old strategy of development and capitulating to the wishes of a dead Republican majority?
The privatization of public universities is one of the most disturbing trends in higher education since the 1980s and is interwoven with problems such as the rising cost of a college education for qualified in-state residents and more dynamic employment markets for professors — a trend that can undermine a good university as quickly as it can help it. Once proud public institutions such as the University of Illinois, the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia received 25, 18 and 8 percent of their funding, respectively, from their state governments in 2005. Not surprisingly, their tuition rates are sky high even for in-state residents, but even these hikes haven’t been enough to meet budgetary needs.
What we have are de facto private universities masquerading as public universities, and Wisconsin is no exception. Here, tuition has — of course — risen, but other perverse effects of privatization have occurred as well. Wisconsin garnered national attention for losing faculty members to other endowed private and quasi-private powerhouses. There is no escaping the need for more funding to keep Wisconsin at the top of higher education, but even with years of privatization (in practice) under its belt, Wisconsin is still struggling to compete with other schools in the market for professors.
These trends could be irreversible sociological developments. Or, as we saw in the recent collapse of our economy, they could simply be the result of years of Republican electoral success, tax cuts and a downright unhealthy obsession with markets and privatization. For my part, I’m going with the latter explanation. We know now privatization of important public sector operations was, in the words of Grover Norquist, a conservative strategy to shrink government until it can be “drowned in the bathtub.” Thankfully, conservatives no longer hold such influence in public office and public philosophy.
In short, when Martin announced her intentions to push headlong into more and more privatization here at UW, she more or less announced her agreement with those who would say that the modern university has changed in irreversible and uncontrollable ways: All we can do is play along in the marketplace and hope for the best.
I’m not so sure we should give up yet. The problems UW is facing are the product of human forces, and those forces have dissipated with a sea change in state and national politics. Public universities like UW represent an ideal — a stable venue of inquiry free from outside pressures and influences and the corrosive effects of competition for private funding. This is especially true in the case of this university and this state with its progressive history and reputation. If it is at all possible to save this social ideal, no matter how much work it might take, it is worth trying. Public universities ought to be just that: public. Unfortunately, Martin’s long-term approach appears to be far too resigned to fate than is appropriate given this time in history and the political window of opportunity that has opened.
