<p>The cost cutting to UW system has been in the news for the last couple years. In today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel it is reported that UW administrators are majorly concerned that the system is at a brink threatening quality of education in a major way. Excerpt:</p>
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"In some places, we may see we've crossed that line," added Mark Nook, senior vice president of academic affairs for the UW System. "Faculty salaries are not keeping up. We're falling further and further behind in salaries and benefits."</p>
<p>The current economic model for funding education may not work forever, said Regent David Walsh of Madison, who raised the issue of fairness to students if the quality starts to lag.</p>
<p>"At what point do we cut the number" of students accepted? Walsh said.</p>
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<p>Faculty are not getting salary increases and are leaving to other institutions. Lots of trends suggesting a lower level of quality and reputation to UW schools (Madison included).</p>
<p>I am excited about my son going to UW Madison but this is troubling and makes me wonder if his choice to UW Madison is questionable. If not for him, with two younger kids I wonder if they should follow their brother's foot steps.</p>
<p>This is all a big part of the reason Madison wanted out of the UW System. Madison can do things on its own that the others cannot but can be limited by the one size fits all thinking you find in any “System”. It could easily increase tuition to cover most of the losses but it can’t because “everyone has to do the same thing in the System” BS. It could use private $ to give more raises but same story. It is fighting for more autonomy but Wisconsin being an inherently backward state that fears individualism and anything “elite” the other schools have done whatever they can do hold them down with the help of the Regents and UW System President who is an idiot. The state government is now looking at mandating more independence for Madison in recognition of its different model and goals. It can override anything the Regents or System want. For now not much is changing at Madison but if there is not change in the ways things are done in the UW System, that could happen.</p>
<p>There is a lot of generalization in that message and the way you see this situation could have something to do with your personal political choices… regardless Madison will remain the best WI has to offer.</p>
<p>Well, as things like quality and directions of same are pretty much an opinion and pretty much everything I wrote was presented by various officials to the BOR yesterday, it is very factual with a little color added for effect.
So here’s a nice cleaned up version of it</p>
<p>There is no doubt that an unshackled UW-Madison could raise its tuition 10-15% in-state & OOS and not miss a beat re: applications. It’s been perceived in the last 5 years as the best OOS value in the Big Ten, quality of education for the money, and has become more exclusive than UM-Ann Arbor.</p>
<p>That being said–and I don’t want to get flamed here because I love what UW-Madison has done for my daughter–it seems that some of these education administrators are living in a bubble of ever-increasing tuitions and easy money available to parents that gladly will borrow it to perpetuate this vicious circle. They appear to be separated from the economic climate of reality.</p>
<p>If the student/parent loan deal bursts like the housing mess, they will find out & quickly.</p>
<p>I’m a little brutish because the best leader at UW-Mad (Biddy Martin) took a look around and said, these folks(BOR, UW Sys President, Legislature) are morons, I’m out of here. Time to call a spade a spade.</p>
<p>Yeah, Barrons, but it’s not as if Biddy could have ramrodded the ‘secession’ through by herself. She definitely had the right vision, though, and brought UW-Madison up with the elites during her tenure.</p>
<p>I’d like to think she would have had a more proactive response than writing a letter pleading for more money which is what the response was so far. In 2002-2003 when facing a similar cut the UW immediately froze enrollment and accepting more applications. They agreed to stop that when they got a 10% tuition surcharge to fill the cut gap.
Seccssion is not the only answer although I think it is the best. Madison needs to be run by those that value and actually understand it. That does not describe the current System leader nor the BOR. For example one BOR member asked last year why Madison is making inroads in China as China is taking US jobs and not democratic. That is self-defeating on so many levels–I thought the US was well past that 1970’s type of thinking.</p>
<p>Numbers. Just got these. Overall basically status quo for this year. Total spending for instruction virtually unchanged (less than a +million). Total academic spending before debt service. $1,664 million vs $1,675 million in 2010-11 or down less than 1%.
Interesting item–state funding fell from $476.5 million to $412.3 million. Tuition income rose from $400.6 million to $429.1 million and now for the first time ever exceeds state funding. This is why UW Madison is fighting for more freedom from the state controls. Of the total budget which excludes the UW hospitals 15.3% now comes from the state. UW Hospitals run without significant state funding and use patient income for main revenue. </p>
<p>Any additional cuts to come would change these numbers.</p>
<p>That is a very small legal technicality set-up to benefit the Hospitals that many schools followed. It is still the UW teaching hospital and their endowment is in the UW Foundation. To say the Hospitals are not part of the UW is like saying WARF is not a part. I left it out because all the operating revenue and expenses inflate the numbers too much and make it hard to see what is going on in educational operations. It might be the model for taking the rest of the UW into a better structure than the System.</p>
<p>And none of those admin nickels and dimes are the answer to the fundamental funding issues of the UW. Nice wallpaper over the issue but no solutions will come from that. They need $100 million answers not $5 million.</p>
<p>barrons- tsdad has it right, not you. The systems mentioned are not part of the UW, especially as far as undergrads are concerned. tsdad has insider knowledge- unlike yours. People- trust tsdad more than an alumnus who can only come to conclusions from the outside with his own bias and interpretations.</p>
<p>I know exactly how the UW hospitals were established as a public authority with their own board(many of which are UW people) But the Med School is still part of the basic UW as are the research institutes physically attached to the hospital so say the are separate except for legal purposes is really a fine point with no practical meaning. Med students still do their training at the hospital as do nurses. Clinical profs are on both payrolls. So to messy things because of some legal behind the scenes issues is really nothing to do with the fact that in practice UW has a med school and a hospital. It might have some issues for admins but for anyone looking at UW it really is a meaningless distinction. The only reason I mentioned is, as I said, is that including hospital revenues and expenses in the basic university budget throws off numbers. For example the state funds about 15% of the basic UW budget but if the hospitals were included as they are at Umich and Uva the total budget would be grossed up to say nearly twice as much and the state would only pay 7.5% of that number. But that is a meaningless number as the state never paid for the hospital operation in any major way. Get it now?? And who said anything about undergrads? This was about the total UW budget which includes research and everything else.Now is the sky blue?
The website even includes both entities. Talk about hair-spliting for no good reason.</p>