The rise in college costs—and student-loan burdens—is breaking through as a hot issue in the 2016 presidential race as contenders float proposals that rethink what college should cost and who should foot the bill. (Subscription required.)
Concerned about far-reaching impacts, the Baraboo City Council unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday that opposes proposed state budget cuts for the local University of Wisconsin campus.
Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to do away with a small state agency that approves and regulates for-profit colleges was voted down Thursday night by the Legislature’s budget committee, likely meaning the Educational Approval Board will continue unchanged after being on the guillotine since late January.
For graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the state appears to be fertile ground for business startups.
A new hotline to report waste, fraud and abuse in the University of Wisconsin System has gone live and officials say it’s already ringing.
Members of the Legislature’s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee won’t decide until later this month whether or not they will reduce the $300 million cut to the UW System proposed in Gov. Scott Walker’s biennial budget. But with the UW System’s fiscal year set to begin on July 1, campuses have been forced to prepare for a worst-case scenario. So regardless of what the Legislature does, the cuts are already being enacted.
The 13 colleges in the University of Wisconsin System have been told to prepare for a reduction of $2.6 million in a first round of budget cuts, with maybe more to follow.
A liberal advocacy group has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Scott Walker over records related to his administrations attempt to alter the Wisconsin Idea, which has guided the mission of the states public higher education system for more than a century.
The group filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Dane County Circuit Court. It was the first to report in February that Walker’s budget would have deleted the core philosophy of the “Wisconsin Idea” from the UW’s statutory mission statement.
A liberal advocacy group has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Scott Walker, saying he is illegally withholding records related to his proposal to rewrite the mission statement of the University of Wisconsin known as the “Wisconsin Idea.’’
Of the 434 positions cut, 70 would be faculty, 108 would be academic staff and 66 would be graduate assistants, according to documents provided to News 3. No faculty would be laid off.
State workers and their family members would see their main out-of-pocket health care costs double next year under proposed budget cuts officials will take up Tuesday. The state Department of Employee Trust Fund’s Group Insurance Board is expected to vote on the proposal, which would satisfy requested cuts to worker benefits in Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget.
Higher ed beat column on fraud line (“UW System will pay $35,000 a year to a Georgia company, The Network Inc., for the next five years to field calls and Web submissions about possible violations.”) and UW–Madison budget cuts (“An updated tally of jobs lost at UW-Madison due to Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed historic $300 million cut to the UW System stands at 434, according to figures released by the university. Of them, 84 percent will come from open jobs that won’t be filled.”)
Noted: For instance, when the Governor took office in 2011 there were only 631 cases of UW System employees enrolled in BadgerCare Plus, the state’s Medicaid insurance program for the poor. By April 2015, the number of cases had jumped up 1,667.
That increase has vaulted the UW System from 46th to 3rd on the list of state employers with the most workers enrolled in BadgerCare Plus. Only Walmart and McDonald’s have more employees receiving those government benefits in Wisconsin.
The job prospects for those students are looking good. Employers have increased hiring of new grads by 9.6 percent this year, according to the National Association for Colleges and Employers. “We’ve been seeing an increase in employers for the past couple of years,” says Steve Schroeder, assistant dean for UW’s BBA program. “We’re not quite where we were pre-2008, but we’re close.”
MINNEAPOLIS – Soaring undergraduate interest in the University of Minnesota is raising the caliber of student admitted to — and rejected by — the state’s flagship school.
A few weeks ago, I took my daughter to see the latest Disney movie. Because it was early in the afternoon, and my daughter is 5, I expected to get a significant discount on the price of our tickets. The electronic ticket kiosk had other intentions. “1 Adult: $11.00” and “1 Child: $10.00.”
Noted: The announcement about WEDC also said the governor wanted to take $55 million from the state budget that had been designated for WEDC and turn it into a worker training program. Walker said he may also be open to other options, including diverting that money to schools or the UW System.
Tenure gives proven, productive faculty members (the only ones who are awarded tenure) the confidence to stick out our necks and take risks. There are rewards for success and penalties for failure in the academic world, but most faculty would dial back on pursuit of risky ideas if not for tenure.
When the University of Wisconsin System gets its funding from the state, it comes as a pool of money that gets divided up for campus use. Not all of the money gets put directly toward the cost of teaching, however. Before it moves on to the campuses, some of the pot has to cover the System’s debt service and the cost of utilities. (Graphics showing how funding is spent.)
Column from detailing a report by progressive groups One Wisconsin Institute and Demos titled “Wisconsin’s Great Cost Shift: How Higher Education Cuts Undermine the State’s Future Middle Class.”
The University of Wisconsin at Madison was the first college to recognize a graduate-student instructors union.
I write this from the perspective of a retired University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW Marathon County faculty member. I also served as chairman of the UW Colleges Psychology Department and acting dean at UWMC. In those positions, I saw various beneficial and seriously damaging effects of budget and policy changes.
As the state Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee moves through its list of issues in Gov. Scott Walker’s budget plan, public education advocates are still hoping that a proposed $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System will be reduced, in spite of the lack of additional tax revenue to offset the cuts.
Wisconsin lawmakers aren’t the only ones considering major funding cuts to higher education.
Students cramming for finals aren’t the only ones in the University of Wisconsin System losing sleep this week.
Close to two dozen UW-Madison faculty members have been awarded with research and distinguished achievement professorships supported by the William F. Vilas estate.
A group of faculty and staff at Madison Area Technical College wasted no time organizing to thwart his proposal to sell the college’s downtown campus and invest in South Madison to serve the city’s neediest residents, MATC president Jack Daniels told college trustees last month.
Reader Diane Beversdorf in her recent letter to the editor seems to have overlooked an important point in her response to University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Chancellor Bernie Patterson’s April 23 column. She cites Patterson’s statement about university leaders recognizing the need to operate more like a business; she then lists several ways in which businesses need to focus on the bottom line — “all of which are required to remain profitable.”
The chancellors of the two largest University of Wisconsin System campuses say that while they expect budget cuts, they might not end up being as deep as those that Gov. Scott Walker has proposed.
Bochsler, the chief of pathology at UW-Madison’s Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, has been named the new director of the facility and will assume the duties July 6.
The Joint Finance Committee voted 12-4 to reduce Walker’s proposed cut to the Educational Communications Board. The state agency works with the University of Wisconsin System to operate Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television, among other duties.
Story regarding status adjunct instructors at MATC, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Edgewood College.
Capitol Neighborhoods Inc. on Monday released a statement saying the move violates a standing commitment to downtown made when Madison College built its Truax Campus in the 1980s.
Noted: A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Piraino also previously worked as a special assistant for state relations at the UW System.
Authority over a decades-old agreement that allows college students from Minnesota and Wisconsin to avoid paying nonresident tuition when they cross the border to attend a public school is up for grabs Tuesday in the Legislature’s powerful budget-writing Joint Finance Committee.
On any given day, Lavern Georgson could be helping a farmer with a sick cow or troubleshooting a problem with someone’s backyard Koi pond.
Walker’s office and his Department of Administration released the documents Friday in response to a State Journal records request made three months ago. They include previously released emails from UW officials asking the budget office as early as Jan. 20 — two weeks before Walker introduced his 2015-17 budget — and again on Jan. 29 to restore the Wisconsin Idea language.
Letter to the editor: Gov. Scott Walker and the Legislature need to consider the students as our fuel to build Wisconsin’s economy. The students need a strong, dependable vehicle with a great engine to take them to their destination.
Staff editorial: The Legislature could delay a $5 property tax cut to fund more UW aid. Most people wouldn’t notice the modest change. The Legislature could slow a sweetheart tax cut for manufacturers. It could accept more federal money for Medicaid. What our state leaders shouldn’t do is weaken UW System just as the economy is improving. Doing so will slow our state in the global race for knowledge, entrepreneurs, private investment and good-paying jobs.
Grant Petty, a UW–Madison atmospheric sciences professor and president of PROFS Inc., tells the paper taking away faculty tenure and shared governance is like asking the Green Bay Packers to play without pads … such a move would strip professors and staff of basic tenets of job stability and satisfaction that have made UW a go-to destination and would cause an exodus of top talent … UW System president Ray Cross has vowed to resign if those key policies go away, an expression of his confidence that they won’t.
Saturday, the University of Wisconsin-Parkside celebrates the most students ready to graduate in our history. Close to 500 men and women are eligible to participate in our spring commencement. In the past five years, we have awarded more undergraduate and graduate degrees than during any other five-year period.
The controversy over how to fund the University of Wisconsin System goes on. The current proposal is for a cut of $300 million and a tuition freeze. It’s clear that the proposal as it stands will have a negative impact on the quality of education in our universities.
Public universities have traditionally had two tiers of pricing for undergraduates: rates for state residents and for nonresidents, respectively. At most public universities, international students pay out-of-state tuition rates. But some public institutions have introduced a third, higher tier specifically for students coming from abroad.
In the meantime, no one thinks the lawmakers can undo the $300 million cut the governor wants to give the University of Wisconsin schools. They have decided the added flexibility Walker proposed as a means of having the schools find ways to cut costs should be dumped. So the UW will get all the negatives of the Walker budget and none of the proposed positives.
Daniels told the MATC board: “The ’when’ is here for the South Madison community. The most impoverished area of Madison is ripe for our strong intervention. We are in a tremendous position to be the catalyst for change collaborating with our partners in education, training, employability and impacting economic and community development.”
Governor Scott Walker is in agreement with Republican legislative leaders, on where the budget focus should be, now that new projections show no real increase in state revenues. But he said he wants them to reconsider his plan to provide the University of Wisconsin System with greater autonomy.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Gov. Scott Walker says his proposed $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System is “manageable” and “realistic” if UW is given some flexibilities to save money.
Gov. Scott Walker said Wednesday that legislative consideration of a financing plan for a new arena in downtown Milwaukee will have to wait until other big-ticket issues such as K-12 school funding and cuts to the University of Wisconsin System are dealt with first.
Five years can seem like an eternity in the world of major college athletics.
A new report says no additional revenue is expected to help lawmakers craft Wisconsin’s two-year state budget.
Thanks to rapidly rising tuition costs, America has a $1.2 trillion student debt problem.
The plan to give the University of Wisconsin System broad autonomy from state regulations is dead.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin tax collections won’t grow beyond earlier projections, state lawmakers were told Wednesday, forcing Republican legislative leaders to consider an accounting move to fulfill their promises to undo Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $127 million cut to public schools.
Chancellor Rebecca Blank updated University of Wisconsin’s Faculty Senate Monday on recent developments to raise money to make up for the deficit created by Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million budget cut to the UW System.
For the second time in Gov. Scott Walker’s gubernatorial tenure, a proposal to split off the University of Wisconsin System or its flagship UW-Madison from state control has died at the hands of the Republican Legislature, according to a top lawmaker.
Considine and Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, sent a letter to Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel last week on behalf of local contractors who worked on dorms at the University of Wisconsin-Baraboo/Sauk County and the University of Wisconsin-Marshfield/Wood County.
The Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce and The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce issued a joint statement Tuesday to urge state legislators to look for ways to reduce Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million cut to the UW System.
The state’s two largest chambers of commerce Tuesday joined forces to warn that Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System could hurt the economy.
A powerful committee of state lawmakers dives deeper this week into votes on Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial state budget. A flurry of decisions will come in May. That’s our cue to roll out some recent PolitiFact Wisconsin fact checks and articles on the 2015-17 spending plan.
