<p>As the OP of this thread, I have to say that it has been very interesting to see where it has gone. Thanks to both barrons and bbbgirl for sharing their views. Think how fortunate we are to be able to have such discussions and, even more so, how lucky we are that we live in a place where individuals can choose what type of educational experience works best for them.</p>
<p>Here’s a quote from Mr Farrell that leads to my conclusion that he is a rightwing crank</p>
<p>"
But, we are promised, there’ll also be an improvement to “vital student services” which the chancellor assures us “have been cited as vital needs.” Cited by whom? The chancellor uses the passive voice to hide the likelihood that those calling for the “vital services” are most likely the very people who benefit by an augmentation of their own ideological influence, supervisory authority and salaries. In my experience, such “services” usually mean a measurable increase in student surveillance along with an unnecessary growth in administrative positions and bureaucratic bloat."</p>
<p>That is right out of the rightwing rhetoric 101 book. “student surveillance”???
“unnecessary growth in…bloat” </p>
<p>How does he know this? Does he know that UW has one of the leanest admins among peer schools? I doubt it but it is a fact. Talk to the admissions folks–they are about half the size of similar schools. A friend of mine is fairly high in the uW admin and came from another organization. He is amazed how few people there really are.</p>
<p>“In concluding, the chancellor says “this proposal asks students and parents … to help.” But, it isn’t really “asking” is it? It’s more like hostage-taking, since there’s very little choice in the matter for currently enrolled students and their parents.”</p>
<p>Oh really–that’s just over the top. I suggest Mr Farrell read up on the concept of transfer to another school–maybe his home school–the Univesity of New Hampshire–would be a good choice. Of course their instate and OOS costs are significantly higher than UW will be even after the surcharges are fully implemented. Can we say hypocrite?</p>
<p>barrons- you have a lot of opinions for someone living so far away- is your only source of current info about this state and its flagship U things you read in news items online? It might be nice to live here again to get a nonstudent’s perspective on the hows and whys of how things work here.</p>
<p>The internet is a wonderful thing. There are even studies on admin ratios and just about anything else I present as fact. Now I have met and spoken with the new Chancellor and I believe her when she says what she is going to do until proven otherwise. She’s a no nonsense person as we can already tell by the way she has removed several old hands from high admin positions. The fact that she was able to usher through one of the larger tuition hikes in many years shows me she knows what levers to pull. Barry Alvarez and the AD better watch out–they might have met their match. I am preparing to serve on a UW board right now so I’ll be getting back more often than ever.</p>
<p>Barrons, you’re serving on a board? Great! Maybe you can get the message across that what this initiative will do is drive middle income students to transfer back to their own state flagship universities before the higher surcharges kick in in years 2 (maybe), 3 and 4 (more likely), leaving Wisconsin residents to pay the bill for Biddy’s plan.</p>
<p>UW gets a lot of OOS students from Illinois but with the outrageously expensive UW initiative surcharge for OOSers, UIUC looks A LOT more attractive. </p>
<p>Total tuition increase percentage when increased tuition surcharge is added to the regular tuition increase each year (assuming 5% increase each year):</p>
<p>Year 1: tuition increase 5% + surcharge which is equivalent to 3.4% = tuition increase of 8.4% over previous year</p>
<p>Year 2: tuition increase 5% + surcharge of 6.4% = 11.4% increase over year 1</p>
<p>Year 3: tuition increase 5% + surcharge of 9.2% = 14.2% increase over year 2</p>
<p>Year 4: tuition increase 5% + surcharge of 11.6% = 16.6% increase over year 3</p>
<p>How many students and their families are going to be able to swing that, financially?</p>
<p>I admire Barron’s ability to spout facts and figures and guess that’s important for a person who will serve on UW-Madison’s board. What is troubling and sad, though, is that Barron’s seems to forget that one of the most important reasons that UW-Madison exists to support and educate young, inexperienced undergraduate students. I certainly hope that his influence on the board is minor (and it will be if he takes the approach we see here on the forums). I wonder if the other members of the board would be pleased by the way that Barron represents them. It would be interesting to see.</p>
<p>If the alternative is UIUC maybe they switch.<br>
If not–maybe not. I would never tell a middle-income family from Illinois to spend the extra money to go to UW. Out here in Seattle I’m very honest that going to our UW is not worth the extra cost over the Udub here if money matters. Now if they are not looking at UDub but have decided to go away and are looking at UM and maybe Boulder and some privates then we can talk.
But I won’t question the UW Madison charging similar tuition compared to similar schools. To do otherwise is just giving the other schools a major advantage in hiring and retaining faculty, building new facilities, etc.<br>
And I’m going to ask all the undergrads I talk to about advising issues. I never had any but the B school has their own as do all the other schools so maybe it’s a problem in L&S. I did some research in the students papers and there seems to be a similar divide.Many had no problems and think the complainers are just unwilling to put forth the effort to either read the catalog requirements and dept information or try to make appts. a few days before registration. Others feel they were not treated as well as they should have been. I do think a segment of students today are FAR different from my generation and used to more parental and other adult help with managing their lives. There are too many stories of helicopter parents and such not to be some degree of truth. In my day my parents were lucky to know my current address and phone #. so I’ll look into it more.</p>
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</p>
<p>Sounds like a close-knit family. We should all aspire to that degree of independence.</p>
<p>
The majority of Wisconsin’s non-resident students come from Illinois (not including Minnesotans who pay much less because of their reciprocal agreement with Wisconsin). Are you sure you want to discourage the middle-income students who are providing the substantial subsidy that keeps Wisconsin residents’ tuition low? The wealthier high-caliber Illinois students choose to go to top-ranked private schools (Northwestern, U Chicago, and others farther from home). Wisconsin’s Madison Initiative is going to price Wisconsin out of the Illinois middle-class market. Who will subsidize Wisconsin students then?</p>
<p>"The tuition that a nonresident student pays not only covers the cost of that student’s education but it actually produces a profit, if you want to call it that," said Mark Bradley, president of the Wisconsin system’s board of regents. “We’re able to use the profit that we make on the out-of-state students to have more state funds to educate more Wisconsin students.”</p>
<p>And…</p>
<p>“In some states, cuts in tuition for out-of-state students have led to political battles. After the University of Wisconsin system in 2006 reduced out-of-state tuition by an average of nearly $2,000 at all its campuses except the Madison flagship…
In the five years before the regents cut tuition, Mr. Bradley said, Wisconsin lost about 900 nonresident students, which cost the system $13 million a year in revenue.”
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/08/education/08states.html?pagewanted=print[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/08/education/08states.html?pagewanted=print</a></p>
<p>The very same reasons frequently listed as rationalizations for the Madison Initiative are very likely to be the same reasons that middle-income non-resident students will consider in deciding that paying still more for a UW education isn’t worth it.</p>
<p>Yes, it was great. We were each free to choose our own paths and make our own way in the world without the undue parental pressure/meddling that I see here on a daily basis. It resulted in three happy successful kids pursing very different paths. Two immigrant parents without HS diplomas had three kids who all finished college degrees and had no incidence of the various social problems like alcohol or drug abuse, overspending, etc etc.</p>
<p>Well, as I said, not everyone from Illinois that is well-qualified can go to UIUC. The choices after that are not so attractive. Also there are many very wealthy families in Illinois–many of which are UW alums–who have some inclination to send their kids to UW despite the cost which compared to private schools of equal quality remains very reasonable. It often can come down to UW vs BU or UM or NYU all of which will cost significantly more to anyone with a good income. As UW improves quality it might actually have the reverse impact of attracting MORE good OOS kids who might have been looking at WUSL, NU, BC, ND and other very good privates that also won’t give much aid to kids from families earning>$125K a year.</p>
<p>The vast majority of kids from Washington going to Madson have some family connection and that’s the main reason they pick it over Udub. There are plenty of UWis alums in Washington doing very well in the high tech and biotech fields out here. They too can afford the OOS tuition without too much complaint. UW has around 400,000 living alums all over the US and overseas so they generate a good number of OOS students just from legacies.</p>
<p>…Except that the reasons frequently cited for the Madison Initiative surcharge are UW’s declining quality (poor student advising and services, not enough course offerings, loss of prominent faculty, etc.)</p>
<p>Ultimately, subsequent admission and transfer stats will tell the tale. We’ll have to wait and see.</p>
<p>Yield dropped 2% this year, before the Regents passed the initiative surcharge.
[The</a> economy and yield at UW-Madison University and State](<a href=“Private Site”>Private Site)</p>
<p>Barrons, for better or worse, many parents are far more involved than those of previous generations.</p>
<p>I’m not certain what came first (very involved parents or super busy kids), but now we’ve got those kids who are simultaneously competing in varsity athletics, leading the jazz band, volunteering 10 hours per week at the soup kitchen, excelling in debate (AND modern dance), getting straight A’s (if not, they have daily tutoring sessions), interning at the local research lab, and playing on the club volleyball and softball teams because the varsity sports aren’t competitive enough. Oh, and did I forget to mention the part-time job on the weekends. </p>
<p>Because the kids’ schedules are busier than a top corporate executive’s, parents need to take care of the details (sort of like an administrative assistant). I mean, who can keep it straight?</p>
<p>I don’t really want to debate whether the situation is a positive or negative, but colleges and universities need to be able to respond to the needs of their customers (who just may be students with parents who have helped them every step of the way…).</p>
<p>Don’t forget the role universities expect parents to take in their college student child’s education - footing the ever-increasing bill. If you don’t want parents involved, don’t count their income and assets against the students when it comes to financial aid decisions and awards. Parent involvement problem solved.</p>
<p>Great point, JiffsMom!</p>
<p>This point has been belabored before, but with the increased cost of college attendance, for this generation, our stake as parents goes well beyond normal mentoring. It’s a huge investment of ours–next to buying a house, it’s #1. Therefore, I have absolutely no problem being the primary academic advisor of my college-age student, at least starting out. Once she gets into the nuances of her major, I’ll back off like I did with D1.</p>
<p>This advising also involved the UIUC in-state versus UW-Madison OOS question. I needed D2 to give me as rational a reason as possible for spending $36K more (oops, make that $43.5K w/the increase) over four years. I’m still having trouble processing her answer–“It just…feels better to me.”</p>
<p>–“It just…feels better to me.” </p>
<p>That’s probably as good an answer as you will get. The difference to me is that UIUC is an extension of the quality Chicago suburban high schools. Do your work, get good grades, get a good job. UW might change your life.</p>