Last night, the Wisconsin State Legislature convened to hear Gov. Doyle’s “State of the State” address. Among other things, the governor discussed the future of our economy and the role Assembly Representatives and state senators can play in trying to improve it.
For several years, state legislatures and governors, regardless of party inclination or a particular state, have consistently decreased funding to the one engine that has always and will always serve our economy extremely well: the public higher-education system.
According to Chancellor Wiley, the taxpayer-funded portion of the UW-Madison budget has decreased from 43 percent in 1973 to just fewer than 21 percent in 2003. Just last year, the state legislature cut the UW system budget by a whopping $250 million, the largest cut in its history. As a result, tuitions rose on campuses across the state. Here, that hike constituted $714 for in-state residents and $3,106 for out-of-state residents.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, such trends are common nationwide.
Moreover, these have been easy cuts for both national and local politicians to make: “Want more money for early education, law enforcement or health care? We’ll just take a little bite out of the public university system and no one will need to pay higher taxes. After all, public higher education is already a deal …”
But all of those little cuts add up — and today we find a public university system that is fundamentally different than that of the Vietnam era. The lower- and middle-income families once able to climb the social ladder through public education are being systematically priced out of the market. According to Wiley, the median family income in Wisconsin is a little over $45,000 a year. Yet for the families of the class of 2007, it is almost $90,000 a year.
This trend cannot and must not continue. This campus has continually attempted to produce a diverse student body, which, according to the UW website, “contributes to the academic vitality of the campus.” Indeed, students of various economic backgrounds approach their education from different points of view, and in doing so produce a more vibrant, productive discourse.
By cutting public funding for education, state political leaders in Wisconsin and throughout the United States are diminishing the very fabric of the university as an institution. These leaders are ensuring that public institutions resemble the private institutions few low- and middle-income families can afford. This is simply poor public policy.
Most importantly, the reduction in funds to public education has resulted in decreasing payoffs to the economy. In an era of globalization, high-tech employees are all-important for the survival of a community.
The UW employs the largest group of high-tech employees in the state, bringing in more employees with advanced degrees than any other state employer. Whether it is the University Research Park, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation or other institutes for research on campus, this public university consistently provides high-paying jobs, technological spin-offs, and the new ideas necessary for maintaining and improving the economy. Further decreases in funding to the system threaten this vital economic engine.
According to an article by Chancellor Wiley in Madison Magazine, “The state puts roughly $400 million annually into UW-Madison, which leverages a $1.8 billion budget that, in turn, has a $4.7 billion impact on the state’s economy.” That is not counting the research spin-offs and high-tech jobs we already acknowledged. This economic payoff can no longer be ignored.
In the end, state legislators must understand that public university systems are investments. They allow students of various economic backgrounds to gain better jobs, create new technologies and more jobs, and, most importantly for state legislators, pay more into the treasury through taxes.
We ask our governor and the current state legislature to acknowledge this trend and change their ways. If they wish to save Wisconsin’s economy, they must invest in the people and institutions that drive the state. They must invest in public higher education.
