The University of Wisconsin Associated Students of Madison student council held their first meeting of the semester to vote on two proposed bills, relating to cyber security and student loans Wednesday.
The first to be introduced was the Support for University Review of Internal Electronic Data Safety Protocols bill, which was created following news of an internal security breach where UW student applications were leaked online, according to a press release released by ASM following the meeting.
The proposed legislation urges the university to reevaluate their student record controls.
The legislation asks that UW assess their risk management through the shared governance process, while also including the university’s existing shared apparatus. The hope is that this will allow for recommendations for changes in interest of greater student privacy.
“Privacy is good. Privacy matters and I think the university could do better at keeping student information safe,” ASM Chair Kevin Jacobson said.
ASM passed the legislation through unanimous consent.
Next, the council discussed a bill introduced last week in the Wisconsin State Legislature that supports the elimination of income tax on student loan relief. The bill also urges that the university prioritize enacting it.
Wisconsin is currently one of the six states that charge income tax on student loans after the loan is relieved, according to the bill. Student loan relief may be granted for various reasons, including cases of scam where students take out student loans just to find out the university they applied to is not real, according to Jacobson. The loan being relieved would then be considered income and the student would be taxed for it.
“It has really minimal fiscal impact on the state. It helps new people a lot,” Jacobson said, “Some people have up to hundreds of thousands dollars in student loans that are forgiven. And then that’s always an income that they didn’t get. So that can really actually affect your finances. It also makes it seem more attractive for people to move here.”
The bill was passed through unanimous consent.
The council will meet again on February 7th at 6:30 p.m. at the Student Activity Center.
