Student voting apathy is one of the central tenets of modern politics. Ask any seasoned politician, and they will tell you the same old adage: “Who votes? 20 percent of people in their twenties, 30 percent of people in their thirties and so on…”
It comes as no surprise, then, that few politicians take the time to cater to the interests of students. Why should you waste your time and money campaigning to people who won’t vote? In a time of monetary crises, politicians usually look to students to take the brunt of the burden. We have only ourselves to blame.
Consider last year’s state-budget crisis; the State of Wisconsin faced a $1.3 billion budget shortfall, with cuts suggested across the board. Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, in league with a Republican-led State Assembly and Senate, passed a budget-cutting $250 million from the UW System.
The effect was immediate. In-state students now pay 18 percent more tuition than last year, and out-of-state students are paying more as well. One Capitol staffer said the decision was easy since there existed no political pressure to protect tuition bills.
The question is this: What if students had taken part in the process from the very beginning, when Doyle originally ran for governor?
Doyle ran in a primary against County Executive Kathleen Falk and then-Milwaukee Congressman Tom Barrett. Only two of the campaigns said openly that they would protect the University system from serious budget cuts and tuition hikes. Unfortunately, both campaigns lost to Doyle — the closest by less than 5 percent.
If only 15 percent of resident students voted in that election, about 25,000 students statewide, the result could have been drastically different. A governor that actually takes a student’s tuition bill seriously could be in office right now because students would have put that governor in place. Who knows? There could have been a governor that regarded the UW System as a fundamental building block of the state’s economic vitality. But we are left with Jim Doyle.
Unfortunately, students as a constituency lacked the motivation to protect their own interests before UW went on the chopping block, and now students pay for their apathy to the tune of $700 a year. That’s a high price to pay for not taking a few minutes to read up on some candidates and fill out a ballot.
Also, consider last year’s property-tax referendum. Due to threats made by the Republican-led Legislature to institute a property-tax freeze, many municipalities faced some difficult problems.
The City of Madison was no exception. It needed new property taxes to fund its schools. A referendum went on the ballot last spring giving voters the option to raise property taxes by up to $12 million. It passed by only 2 percent, with extremely low voting in student districts. Though the city will not use the full $12 million, property-tax payers will see an increase in their bills by a total of $3.3 million this year.
Now property owners, who have practically extorted student renters on campus, have another reason to raise already outrageous rent prices. Again, students can only blame themselves for not taking the time to vote.
According to the vote totals, if only 1,000 of the nearly 40,000 students at UW had turned out to protect their rent checks, the referendum would not have passed. Students could have made the difference in their own rent bills but did not take the time to do it. The next time students complain about tuition or rent, they shouldn’t do it to the administration or the landlords. They should do it at the ballot box.
Paul Temple ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science and philosophy.
