<p>When a university has to deal with serious proposals to close down the law school (“too many lawyers”) and control research and teaching certain subjects on campus the state role has become too burdensome relative to the support level.</p>
<p>Katlia – first you say schools or programs being shut down, when pressed you backtract to programs being shut down. Fair enough there are programs being shut down where I live. If students no longer want to major in French, then that major will be eliminated at one state school. </p>
<p>Schools "take"tuition. Again, I do not have faith in academia to try to keep it down.</p>
<p>So, how much is the UW-Mad. worth, assuming the citizens wanted to sell it to these non-profit folks? Go out in the private equity markets and gather a few billion dollars and make a check out to the people of Wisconsin. Until then the university is owned by the people of the state. They exercise their rights via elections, the constitutin and the legislature. The private money that comes to the university is donated to the university that is owned by the people and they get to right it off on their taxes. If you don’t like it, start your own university, but you can’t just pretend that you own it because you are onthe Board of Regents.</p>
<p>Barrons, I wish he was your governor because then he wouldn’t be mine. </p>
<p>While there were rumblings about Walker doing so, he did not say he would take away the collective bargaining rights of state workers, teachers etc. It was not something he overtly ran on. Those rights have a half century of history in Wisconsin.</p>
<p>The current UW system board of regents members were appointed by Walker’s democratic predecessor. Splitting off UW-Madison would allow him to appoint all the members to a new governing board. This is about control for Walker, not flexibility for Biddy Martin and the university. Anyone who has observed Walker as Milwaukee County executive on a regular basis should know that.</p>
<p>Would he attempt to privatize the university at some point? It wouldn’t surprise me. My own state senator of the same ilk has argued for privitazing all dorms in the past. The state running dorms takes away from private enterprise possibilities apparently. The function of UW should be to provide a ready market for landlords. It already does to a great extent but apparently not enough to satisfy some.</p>
<p>Wis75 refers to the “Wisconsin Idea” which has over a century of history. It would be a shame to see that ideal go down the tubes.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.wisconsinidea.wisc.edu/history.html[/url]”>http://www.wisconsinidea.wisc.edu/history.html</a></p>
<p>There is no threat to the Wisconsin Idea whatever that really means. of course UW will continue preparing teachers and doing research that helps Wisconsin companies and farmers. All state U’s do that and I never thought the WI was all that special. When was the last time the UW sponsored major legislative ideas or the like?? Decades ago. Now it just does typical research in ag and engineering and medicine that every state U does with a focus on some that are unique to the state like dairy. Nearly everything it does has a national or broader use anyway. They may even do some things better like online classes which right now are not done much because there is no structure in place to encourage them. </p>
<p>As to Walker–he won’t be around forever and I think his likely time is 4 years rather than 8. He goes way too out there for most folks to like him next time around. He’s too extreme.</p>
<p>Are you familiar with UW-Extension?</p>
<p>[University</a> of Wisconsin-Extension](<a href=“University of Wisconsin System”>http://www.uwex.edu/)</p>
<p>They do a lot of hands-on work and education in all 72 counties, rural and urban. They also have extensive distance(online) learning as well as other services.</p>
<p>Does UW-Extension stay with Madison and lose the resources of the other campuses, or stay with the other campuses and lose the resources of Madison?</p>
<p>I see very few Madison classes on that list which is what I was discussing. No Bachelor level classes/degrees at all. They would like to offer more but as I said, the issue was how they would get paid to do that. That was straight from a UW Madison dean. Any future relationship with Extension–which prior to the merger WAS part of the Madison campus, could be worked out. Right now the level of involvement appears fairly low anyway. </p>
<p>[UW</a> System Academic Programs through Distance Learning](<a href=“http://uwhelp.wisconsin.edu/majors/distancelearning.aspx]UW”>http://uwhelp.wisconsin.edu/majors/distancelearning.aspx)</p>
<p>As to the poor students of the state–funny photo in the MJS today. Girl supporting Walker cuts is toting a Michael Kors bag that costs about $500. </p>
<p>[Tuition</a> would jump under proposed UW-Madison separation - JSOnline](<a href=“http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/116420304.html]Tuition”>Tuition would jump under proposed UW-Madison separation)</p>
<p>As I understand it, the proposal on the table is a fairly modest one: the state would make substantial cuts in appropriations to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and in return relax current and proposed state controls on university purchasing and salaries that university officials fear could hamstring the university’s competitive position. But of course, that money would need to be made up somewhere, so the proposal is to raise tuition by 10% in each of the next two years. UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin seems quite supportive of the idea.</p>
<p>[Tuition</a> would jump under proposed UW-Madison separation - JSOnline](<a href=“http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/116420304.html]Tuition”>Tuition would jump under proposed UW-Madison separation)</p>
<p>To some extent Wisconsin is just playing catch-up. Other state flagships, notably Michigan and Virginia, are already much further down the road to quasi-privatization. I’m not as familiar with the details in Virginia, but the Michigan legislature has been starving the University of Michigan for decades, really since the 1970s when the auto industry, and with it the state’s economy, started to go into serious decline. Fortunately (from the university’s perspective) it was set up from the outset as an independent entity—a creature of the state constitution, not of the legislature. (Actually, the University of Michigan predates the State of Michigan, so the first state constitution more or less acknowledged and codified the university’s independent role, rather than creating it; but that’s a quibble). The University’s Board of Regents are elected statewide “constitutional” officers, with expansive powers and duties set out in the state constitution. As I understand it, they’re the only governmental entity to whom the University is accountable; neither the governor’s office, nor the state department of education, nor the legislature have any say in the University’s governance, operations, curriculum, tuition rates, purchasing policies, salary structure, or finances, except insofar as the state constitution instructs the legislature to appropriate such sums “as may be necessary” to support the University. But at this point those legislative appropriations are down to about 7% of the University’s operating budget. The University has countered years of legislative cutbacks by building up a $6.5 billion endowment (roughly the 7th or 8th largest in the country), aggressively pursuing external research grants and contracts (now to the tune of about $1 billion/year), and expanding the OOS student population to the point where the 35% of students who are OOS collectively pay considerably more tuition than the 65% who are in-state. State taxpayers are still getting a bargain, because the modest remaining legislative appropriation doesn’t even come close to matching the steep tuition discount that in-state students get. This has led to semi-serious calls, mostly from Republican legislators so far, to simply cut the university loose, end the legislative appropriation, and let the university charge a uniform tuition rate. It could probably shrink its student body, become considerably more selective, and still come out ahead financially. </p>
<p>Bad deal for Michigan taxpayers? Well, 50 and 75 and 100 years ago it would have been accurate to say that Michigan taxpayers “built” the University of Michigan, but over the last several decades that’s become less and less true. I believe the university self-finances all its major capital projects these days without legislative appropriations, and the amount of taxpayer money coming into the school, while more than a pittance, doesn’t come close to paying for what state residents get in return, not only in tuition discounts but in economic activity and tax revenue, with Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County being one of the few bright spots in the state economy. The university has been forced, as a matter of economic imperative, to act as a quasi-private entity; and it had a great deal of legal autonomy all along. We might be approaching the point where it’s in both the state’s interest and the university’s interest to simply go the final step. Wisconsin is still a long way from that. But I think there’s a fair chance the privatization road Michigan and Virginia are on is the same road many other public universities will find themselves on in the near future. Wisconsin is looking at taking just the first small steps down that road.</p>
<p>That is essentially where the university of Colorado is today. They get a few bucks for every state student enrolled and that’s it. Their total state take is now about $50,000,000 and falling. Obviously Biddy has been following what had happened at Mich and UVa as she comes from Virginia and went to William and Mary undergrad.</p>
<p>Nice summary.</p>