Global economic forces have created a challenging fiscal environment for the state. These same forces have increased the returns from higher education – for example, the more than $1 billion per year in resources the University of Wisconsin-Madison attracts from outside the state and the many local benefits UW-Madison provides through accessibility to higher education for our citizenry. The state, therefore, faces a conundrum: Just when it needs a great research university most, it is finding it difficult to provide the growth in revenues needed to sustain it.
A column by Michael Knetter, who joined the UW-Madison School of Business as its dean in July 2002, and Gwen Eudey, assistant to the dean in the School of Business, who has joint appointments as a senior lecturer in both Finance and Economics at UW-Madison.