UW Death By A Thousand Cuts?
State budget cuts for UW System is causing many reductions in service.
Wisconsin lawmakers cut state funding for the UW System by $125 million per year for the budget period that runs between July 2015 and June 2017, reducing Wisconsin’s investment in keeping higher education accessible and jeopardizing the economic benefit that Wisconsin residents receive from the UW System.
UW officials have released descriptions of planned and ongoing cuts to academics, facilities, and services at each campus that have been made to reduce costs in the wake of the budget cut. Many campuses are reducing the number of classes offered, potentially increasing the amount of time students must spend in school before they can receive credit for courses required for graduation. Other campuses are postponing updates to outdated facilities, cleaning buildings less often, and reducing advising and mentoring services for students. This map shows a selection of the cuts made at each campus, along with each location’s share of the $125 million budget cut.
UW System cuts.
Wisconsin Budget
-
Charting The Racial Disparities In State’s Prisons
Nov 28th, 2021 by Tamarine Cornelius
-
State’s $1 Billion Tax Cut Leaves Out 49% of Taxpayers
Sep 21st, 2021 by Tamarine Cornelius
-
TANF Program Serves a Fraction of Poor Families
Aug 30th, 2021 by Jon Peacock
I’m a retired UW system professor. I worked 60+ hours most weeks. Alumni at my campus chose me several times as a professor who best prepared them for life after college. The Student Association named me “Outstanding Professor on Campus.” The year I retired, I published an academic article, and my Student Evaluations were the best in my department.
IF I WERE LOOKING FOR A COLLEGE TEACHING POSITION TODAY, I WOULD NEVER CONSIDER A UW CAMPUS, AND NEITHER WOULD MANY OTHERS WITH STRONG QUALIFICATIONS.
Professors’ primary motivations are teaching and researching their field of study, certainly not money. Especially the best-paid professors could earn much more outside of academia. Friends and relatives with equivalent or less education and experience working in corporate America or in private practice made double my income or more. A colleague who lost his job was hired with much better pay, status, resources, and working conditions by a commercial firm a mile from campus before he cleaned his office.
Professors do take the best academic jobs available. As salaries, tenure, teaching loads, and the resources needed to do our jobs become significantly worse than in other states, WISCONSIN LOSES GOOD COLLEGE FACULTY who get superior positions elsewhere. OUR COLLEGES CAN ONLY HIRE NEW FACULTY WHO CAN’T COMPETE FOR BETTER JOBS. Whether Walker and his Koch-roach buddies like it or not, simple economics applies just as in other labor markets.
Walker’s disastrous education policies reduce faculty quality and do other damage to what was once a fine state university system. The problems will persist for decades.