Two years ago, when the University of Wisconsin was tapped the second-ranked party school in America, this board found a silver lining in being the proverbial first loser: “Alas, take solace in that we, the seventh-rated public university in the nation … and a university with increasingly difficult admissions standards, remain the hardest-partying school whose students remain functionally literate on Monday mornings.”

The good news is that we have surpassed the University of Colorado-Boulder in the Princeton Review’s latest batch of rankings and are now considered the preeminent party school in America. We have compensated for a notoriously weak Greek system by taking full advantage of having so many breweries a short distance from campus.

But Bucky Badger’s newfound status as the most popular kid in the national college class seems to have come at a price. UW’s reputation as the seventh-ranked university nationally, cited in the aforementioned editorial, is no longer. U.S. News and World Report has now deemed us No. 8, also dropping from the 32nd overall university to 34th. And while the slip seems minor, it is cause for as much concern today as the runner-up party ranking was two years ago.

Ongoing budget cuts from the state — highlighted by a recent flurry of vindictive slashes from the legislature — are beginning to take a toll on UW’s academic repute. There is less money to retain quality professors today, and the timetable has shrunk from a hefty book to timetable status.

Of the seven public universities placing ahead of UW, three are part of the University of California system (UC-Berkeley, UCLA and UC-San Diego), while two are part of Virginia’s public-school system (the University of Virginia and William & Mary). Rounding out these seven dominant schools are the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and a certain group of Wolverines on the other side of Lake Michigan.

Perhaps most depressing, however, is that the top public school of the lot — UC-Berkeley — came in at No. 20 overall, meaning we live in an era when the 19 finest schools in the country are all private institutions.

This recent U.S. News poll is a harsh reminder of the increasingly sad state of public education in America — and in Wisconsin in particular. This state should not be content with the third-finest school in California being superior to the top option in Wisconsin.

Until this situation improves, the annual academic rankings will continue to be — for lack of a better word — sobering.