The University of Wisconsin System could face a $28 million budget cut next fall, triggering enrollment reductions of an estimated 1,650 full-time students. The cut would also mean the university could afford fewer staff members and would lose $14.6 in tuition revenue, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
In September, the UW System Board of Regents submitted a budget request for a 7.2 percent increase in state funding, which would raise tuition 4.3 percent. This increase would be coupled with a hike in state support.
In the past two years, the UW has seen a tuition increase of nearly 40 percent, and last year the university lost $250 million in state funding.
Gov. Jim Doyle has asked state agencies to plan for possible cuts as he drafts his new budget proposal, which he will submit to the Legislature in January 2005. It will go into effect in July.
Ashok Kumar, Associated Students of Madison Academic Affairs chair, said he is pessimistic about the direction the university is headed. He believes UW will receive a hefty cut next year.
“If things keep going the way they’re going, I think there will be cuts,” Kumar said. “[The university] has been on this steady path of looking out for administrators and the state rather than students.”
Kumar said ASM has engaged in outreach work to inform as many people as possible about UW’s loss of state funding. He added UW is becoming a school only the wealthy can afford.
“More and more students come from the upper echelon of socio-economic background,” he said. “It’s an elite class of students coming. This is a state school; everyone should be able to go here.”
UW junior Sonya Bute said as a student from Minnesota, she pays close attention to instate tuition.
“Most of my friends are out of state, though,” she said. “Their tuition is always so much higher. The state budget cuts probably affect them more.”
UW will likely accept more out-of-state students as a result of state budget cuts, Kumar said.
“We’re on a steady course of privatizing the school. If you keep lowering funding and increasing tuition, that’s privatizing,” he said, adding he would not be surprised if tuition increased by more than the 4.3 percent the Board of Regents proposed in September.
“The September request will have some effect but not the effect we’d hope for,” he said.
The Student Labor Action Coalition and various diversity organizations on campus are working with ASM to fight the budget cut, Kumar said.
“This especially hurts diversity and Plan 2008,” he said.
Bute agreed lack of diversity on campus could become a serious problem if the state budget cuts make UW unaffordable for some low-income students.
Kumar said he believes the budget cuts the system faces are an indication of the governor’s priorities.
“We have the second to lowest corporate taxes in the country. I don’t blame the corporations, but the governor is tailoring his plan to special interests,” Kumar said. “I don’t know what politicking is going on.”
