On Wisconsin , the alumni magazine of the University of Wisconsin-Madison reports:
The price tag for attending college has increased dramatically over the last two decades, with tuition more than tripling at public universities between 1988 and 2008, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. That trend includes the UW, where tuition went up 140.6 percent between the 2002–03 and 2012–13 academic years.
About one-fourth of that increase was directly due to the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates (MIU), a program students approved to address access to classes, improve advising, and offer more financial aid.
The intense focus over ever-increasing tuition bills even prompted New York Senator Charles Schumer to suggest penalizing schools that don’t keep tuition costs within the rate of inflation.
There's more:
In 2011, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed a bill that ended collective bargaining for state and university employees and required them to pay a larger share of their health insurance. The law cut costs, but the UW System (and UW–Madison) did not get to keep their share of those savings. Rather, the money went back into the state’s general budget fund.
Tuition represents 16 percent of the UW’s budget; the rest is covered by a mix of federal money, private funds, grants, and support from the state. The amount of money the UW has received from state taxpayers increased between 2004 and 2014, but the share of the university’s budget from tax dollars has dwindled, much as it has at public universities around the country. During the 1973–74 academic year, 44 percent of UW–Madison’s budget came from the state. This year, it’s 16.7 percent.
Maybe it's time to separate school from state. Who could forget that University of Wisconsin is an arm of the
Democrat party?
