With just weeks to go until the start of the academic year, the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents voted in August to raise tuition at all of its four-year schools.

Wisconsin residents at UW-Madison are currently set to pay an annual tuition of $6,330, a $330 increase from last year. In-state tuition at UW-Madison, though, remains the second-lowest in the Big Ten Conference, behind only the University of Iowa.

While a tuition hike is often unwelcome news for students, the UW System is touting this as the lowest dollar increase in five years and lowest percentage point increase in seven years.

The regents were forced to set tuition rates despite major uncertainty under the Capitol dome. All summer long, lawmakers have split along partisan lines regarding the 2007-09 biennial budget and how much money should be provided for UW.

State funding for the UW System remains in limbo, as legislators from the Republican-controlled Assembly and Democrat-controlled Senate have not been able to come up with a compromise.

Because the budget has not been finalized, UW System spokesperson David Giroux said another tuition increase after the fall semester is possible if the state does not provide enough funding to cover faculty salary increases.

But the 5.5 percent tuition hike at the four-year universities was enacted to simply “cover the costs of educating our students,” Giroux said.

Giroux emphasized the importance of the relationship between state funding and tuition costs.

“When we talk about tuition controls, we know how this works,” Giroux said. “We know you can hold down tuition … if there’s a corresponding contribution from the state.”

For example, Ohio State University was able to freeze tuition for the 2007-2008 school year because of a large increase in funding from the state.

“It’s really not a very complex equation,” Giroux said. “When you don’t receive enough funding from tuition, the state needs to provide more funding, or services need to be curtailed."

Aside from Ohio State, Giroux said UW students are seeing the smallest increase of any school in the Big Ten Conference.

While 14 of the 17 regents voted in favor of the tuition hike, State Superintendent and Regent Elizabeth Burmaster and Student Regents Thomas Shields and Colleene Thomas voted against it.

“When we increase tuition, we’re limiting access to students,” Thomas told The Badger Herald.

However, Thomas said the board was left with a very difficult task of setting tuition despite the uncertainty from the state Legislature.

Thomas said she is calling on students and parents throughout the state to encourage legislators to increase funding for the UW System before tuition can rise even further.

“Right now, we’re getting a good education,” Thomas said. “At least what we’re spending is worth it.”

At the regents’ meeting earlier this month, Regent Tom Loftus called for lawmakers to support the UW System.

“We are presenting them, the leaders [in state government], our best judgment as to what this university needs now and for the future,” Loftus said.

The regents also voted to raise tuition at UW-Milwaukee by $323 to $6,191 and by $251 to $4,819 at all other four-year universities throughout the state. Tuition did not increase, though, for the 13 two-year UW Colleges.