Wisconsin Dems push back on GOP threats to higher education

Wisconsin Democratic legislators are sounding the alarm over the GOP’s threatened cuts to higher education.

On Wednesday assembly speaker Robin Vos said he and his Republican colleagues are seriously considering cutting $87 million from the Universities of Wisconsin.

“Cutting UW system funding means college will become unaffordable, professors and staff will leave for other markets, life saving research will stall, and Wisconsin will be less attractive to businesses and workers,” warned Rep. Lee Snodgrass.

The UW Board of Regents made a budget request last year for $855 million, which Gov. Tony Evers, in his budget proposal, whittled to $697 million. The Board suggested their budget would raise the state’s public university system from 44th in the nation to at least the middle of the pack.

The Board’s budget sought: to extend the Wisconsin Tuition Promise to students from families earning up to $71,000; five percent and three percent wage increases for staff and faculty over the next two years; to create a new Artificial Intelligence Hub; and to preserve accessibility while covering cost increases due to inflation; among other things.

The Board did not recommend any increase in tuition.

“It’s time Wisconsin escapes the bottom ten in public funding and gets up to the Middle,” UW’s President Jay Rothman said last August when the budget was proposed. “This budget request will spur innovation in research and teaching, make a degree more affordable for our students most in need, develop talent by focusing on student success, preserve accessibility, and ensure quality.”

Vos cited a “lack of political diversity” and “political correctness” as among the reasons they are considering the cuts. The system has experienced cuts in the past under both Democratic and Republican administrations but in those cases, the state budget was under serious constraint. By contrast, Wisconsin currently sits atop a $4.3 billion surplus.

Democrats stressed that cuts to higher education ultimately cost well more than they initially save both in a loss of potential students; a diminishing of a qualified labor pool that could lead to businesses choosing not to locate in the state or actually leaving for states that fully support higher ed.

“Wisconsin is now 44th in the nation in terms of state funding for their public universities,” Snodgrass said. “This is shameful and lacking in any economic sense. Our UW system holds enormous importance for all Wisconsin communities, not just for preparing young people to succeed in a competitive global environment but as a workforce driver. 

“Cutting UW system funding means college will become unaffordable, professors and staff will leave for other markets, life saving research will stall, and Wisconsin will be less attractive to businesses and workers.”

The Joint Finance Committee was intending to revisit the issue sometime this week.

“One thing seems very clear: An investment in the Universities of Wisconsin is an investment in Wisconsin,” Rothman said last August. “The Universities of Wisconsin will be serving the state for generations to come, and the investments we make now will carry through far into the future. The investments we fail to make will also have consequences that will be generational.”