Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to cut the University of Wisconsin System by $300 million over two years would likely lead to layoffs, but closing campuses is not on the table at this time, top school officials said Tuesday.
This proposed cut is especially draconian, given the election-year tuition freezes and the state’s recent parsimonious allocations to the System. Even without these future cuts, faculty — often the very best young faculty — have been leaving Wisconsin.
University of Wisconsin officials are warning of layoffs and cuts to student services following Gov. Scott Walkers announcement of planned budget cuts to the UW System.
Graphic article showing UW System fund sources, with a deeper dive on UW–Madison.
On some days at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse’s Recreational Eagle Center, it’s impossible to find an open elliptical machine or bench press. The Rec Center can be packed with students trying to work out between classes, studying and jobs.
The price of freedom from state regulation has gone up for the University of Wisconsin.
Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to give the University of Wisconsin System more freedom would allow it to impose unchecked tuition increases and potentially price students out of college, one of the system’s toughest critics and student leaders said Tuesday.
RACINE COUNTY — Area legislators and university officials are wary of Gov. Scott Walker’s plan for the University of Wisconsin System, in which funding would be slashed in exchange for schools gaining more autonomy.
University of Wisconsin System officials and state lawmakers charged with its oversight are reacting to Governor Scott Walker’s plans for the system’s future. Walker will include the plan as part of the 2015-’17 state budget proposal which he’ll formally announce next week.
Wisconsin universities now face the largest budget cuts in their history, even as colleges in other states crawl out of budget holes.
Governor Scott Walker’s proposed structure and funding changes for the University of Wisconsin system have UW officials concerned. Walker proposes another two-year undergraduate tuition freeze along with giving the UW System more autonomous after 2017, allowing them to raise tuition based on the market and make more decisions without the Legislature’s oversight.
Several Democrats are blasting Governor Scott Walker’s UW System funding cuts.
Gov. Scott Walker is proposing a 13-percent cut in state funding for the University of Wisconsin System at the same time that he wants to give all campuses more freedom from state laws.
The University of Wisconsin System will be given more autonomy, while having its state funding slashed by 13 percent over the next two years, under the budget Gov. Scott Walker will submit to the Legislature next week.
The University of Wisconsin System will be given more autonomy, while having its state funding slashed by 13 percent over the next two years, under the budget Gov. Scott Walker will submit to the Legislature next week.
In coming years, the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin may become more than academic at some University of Wisconsin campuses. They may find themselves in a Darwinian struggle to remain open and relevant in the face of two more years of expected state budget cuts and a tuition freeze for state undergraduates also expected to be extended another two years.
Here’s hoping the debate is an honest effort to improve the performance, accessibility and accountability of the state’s largest higher education system, not a political exercise driven by perception rather than fact.
As UW System officials brace for funding cuts in Gov. Scott Walker’s new budget, an organization of UW-Madison faculty says the campus cannot absorb much more.
MADISON, Wisconsin — Gov. Scott Walker will have to plug a roughly $280 million budget shortfall by the end of June, and the state faces a two-year deficit that could be as large as $2 billion, based on new estimates released Friday by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
Sen. Scott Fitzgerald is awaiting more details from Gov. Scott Walker, but says flexibility will be a consideration.
Despite its record enrollment this year, the loss of instructors at UW-Stout keeps Chancellor Bob Meyer awake at night.
Changes could be on the way for the UW System in the next state budget.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank says there is no proposal under discussion that would give her campus independence beyond that of the university system.
The chancellor responds to a State Journal report that Gov. Walker is considering giving the UW System more flexibility.
… once public universities or public university systems get the authority to increase tuition, “you get the tendency to increase tuition.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank expects the university will face a cut in the next state budget.
The universities would operate as a public authority, under an idea being discussed.
But he won’t expand on the internal discussions until his Feb. 3 budget address.
Gov. Scott Walker acknowledged Monday that his administration is considering granting more autonomy to the University of Wisconsin System.
It didn’t take long for some opponents to line up against a possible decoupling of the state’s universities from the state.
As he continues work on his proposed biennial budget, Governor Scott Walker says he’s still looking at possible plans for the future of the University of Wisconsin System and its flagship campus.
Gov. Scott Walker is expected to paint a grim picture when he delivers his plan in a few weeks for balancing the state budget, which would stand in sharp contrast to his upbeat State of the State speech.
Gov. Scott Walker and the Legislature should give UW-Madison the right to work without micro-management. Take off the shackles that bind UW’s hands.
Speaking to the Madison Rotary Club yesterday, Cross acknowledged the state is facing a tough budget and the university system shouldn’t be exempt as lawmakers manage scarce resources. But he said the university should be viewed as a partner and investment, rather than an expense.
He offered some possibilities for finding efficiencies. One, he said, was in more flexibilities for the UW System in hiring and financial matters.
For the University of Wisconsin-Madison, all focus for the upcoming legislative session is on the state budget. The university doesn’t traditionally promote or oppose specific bills in the Legislature, said Charles Hoslet, associate vice chancellor of government and corporate affairs. “Ninety percent of what we’re interested in happens in the state budget,” Hoslet said.
Maybe the GOP has actually convinced voters that we do not need and cannot afford a world-class research university such as the one we have at UW-Madison. After all, it is GOP pols who like to say — to dodge overwhelming evidence that climate change exists — that they cannot opine on it because they are not scientists. So, not grasping the promise of stem cells and other advanced research, maybe they think Wisconsin’s flagship university should stick to training for professions they understand.
And the second most powerful state political figure, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, has joined the attack on science. Vos … threatened that he wants university research to focus exclusively on economic development and not, as he put it, “on the ancient mating habits of whatever.” University researchers will now have to worry that the guy who holds their purse strings and can cut their budget will be passing judgment on what they should research.
As a new budget cycle approached early this year, University of Wisconsin-Superior administrators anticipated the campus would receive added revenue from a tuition increase and more money from the UW System.
University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross said it’s time for a fresh look at how the statewide system does business, calling for an array of measures that would cut costs and could affect campus life.
University of Wisconsin System president Ray Cross is proposing changes in three main areas in an effort to enhance quality and affordability.
Although he served as a student member of the UW Board of Regents back in 1989, he has had the UW-Madison in the cross hairs because some in the administration crossed him. His latest threat is to have the Republican-led Legislature micromanage how many hours professors spend in the classroom — and worse, make sure the UW’s huge research function is geared to helping the state’s economy, rather than focusing on “ancient mating habits of whatever.” It shows how ignorant Vos and all too many of his colleagues are about the UW-Madison and its internationally renowned research, which has found cures for diseases, revolutionized farming and the production of food, educated students who have gone out to lead the business world, is on the cutting edge of stem cell development and is a leader in countless other scientific and technology areas — benefits for not only Wisconsin’s economy, but the world.
University of Wisconsin Chancellor Rebecca Blank stressed the importance of being transparent with state legislators about what a recently announced $100 million gift will mean for UW at a Faculty Senate meeting Monday.
UW-Madison paid full professors an average of $109,300 — 25 percent below the median among 11 comparable schools around the nation.
(Wis. Taxpayer’s Alliance’s) Berry also addressed the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents earlier this month along with Department of Workforce Development secretary Reggie Newson … The two talked about the role of education in Wisconsin’s economic outlook and Newson noted the growing need for more bachelor’s degree-holders in Wisconsin. “The university shouldn’t be figuring out how to fill today’s jobs but how to spawn tomorrow’s quirky thinkers who innovate, who will sometimes succeed and sometimes fail,” Berry told the board.
That’s a sizable hole for Walker, who is contemplating a 2016 presidential run, to climb out of as he crafts his budget proposal due out early next year. Achieving a balanced budget will require scaling back program requests, especially if he wants to cut taxes further.
Gov. Scott Walker’s administration has contracted with the Segal Co. to study potential cost-cutting changes to the state’s health insurance plans, including moving to a self-insured coverage program, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Wednesday.
Budget requests from Wisconsin government agencies exceed expected state revenues in the next two-year budget cycle. Those numbers will be a starting point for Republican Governor Scott Walker and GOP legislators as they begin the task of putting together a state budget – one they hope will include a tax cut.
According to budget numbers released by the Walker administration on Thursday, the next state budget faces a $2.2 billion shortfall between what agencies want to spend and what the state is expected to generate in tax revenue.
A report published by a Dallas-based libertarian think tank and Wisconsin’s conservative MacIver Institute calls for changes to the state’s health care benefit program for public retirees.
Back in the 1980s, three economics professors, Robert Wilson of Stanford, Paul Milgrom of Northwestern and R. Preston McAfee University of Texas, worked together conducting research on “game theory and auctions.” It was just the sort of seemingly trivial, silly-sounding research that critics of universities point to, but it became crucial in 1993, when Congress granted the Federal Communications Commission authority to auction portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The three profs helped design the auction, helping pave the way for the telecommunications revolution.
The day after last Tuesday’s election didn’t exactly inspire confidence for backers of the University of Wisconsin System and its request for a funding boost of $95 million in the next two-year cycle. Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, who’s co-chairman of the state’s budget committee, called the request a “tough sell. ”At the same news conference, Nygren’s colleague Robin Vos, R-Rochester, who’s speaker of the Assembly, said faculty should focus on research that would benefit the state’s economy, not the “ancient mating habits of whatever.” The remark was seen as condescending by many at UW-Madison, a research giant that brings $1.2 billion a year in federal funding to the state. The same day, a different effort got no headlines but could be significant: UW-Madison emailed all of its in-state alumni with a plea. “Right now, UW-Madison needs your voice more than ever,” the email said.
Then there is Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, threatening to tie University of Wisconsin funding to job creation. The university is not a job training school; it is a world-class research institution that is providing us the evidence to implement policies to combat climate change and eradicate disease through stem cell research.
It may come as no surprise that state Republican leaders, in the flush of electoral victory, are targeting University of Wisconsin funding in the next legislative session. But the scorn for the university evident in Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ post-election remarks struck some observers.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank arrived in July 2013 amid an uproar at the Capitol over hundreds of millions in cash balances carried over by the state’s public universities without full disclosure, including sizable tuition balances that amassed alongside annual tuition hikes during a recession.
The co-chairman of the Legislature’s powerful finance committee doesn’t sound too optimistic that the University of Wisconsin System will get the additional $95 million it wants in the next state budget.
MADISON — Gov. Scott Walker wants to pass his second-term agenda quickly through a Legislature controlled by Republicans who tightened their grip on the majority with wins in the midterm election.
Gov. Scott Walker is touring the state’s technical colleges rather than speak at a meeting of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents.
An emerging dilemma at UW-Madison involves the state government’s two-year ban on raising tuition, not only for in-state undergraduates, but for out-of-state students of all descriptions including professional school students in fields such as medicine, veterinary science, business and pharmacy.
Higher education: Walker takes pride in freezing tuition at the University of Wisconsin System for two years and plans to do so again. That no doubt plays well with university students and their parents, but the fact is that such a continued freeze could hurt the system?s ability to attract and retain faculty. UW schools are a bargain, with average costs, and quality doesn?t come cheap.
