Is the premier public university UW-Madison going down?? I found, that even three years ago, UW-Madison was ranked among the top 28 colleges globally. However, in the last two years, it has undergone a dramatic change in its rankings, a vertical dip in all departments…Current ranking puts UW-Madison in the 50’s, and it might decrease even further… Why is this happening, and is there any chance for it’s situation to improve??
Budget cuts to the university system in Wisconsin pretty severe, and bound to have an effect:
Yup. Too many of the rankings use spending as a significant part of the ranking criteria. Schools have become bloated in an effort to boost rankings. The purpose of a state school is to educate the local students, not to be an elitist organization spending tax dollars to boost rankings. One of the best things that could happen for the students in the state of Wisconsin is for this to continue. Maybe more Wisconsin kids can actually get in.
I agree with @Torveaux. It is nice to have one less school to consider when making potential OOS decisions.
@Torveaux Respectfully, falling ratings are not a good thing for the student population of Wisconsin. Shrinking budget translates into failure to replace retiring faculty, decline of physical facilities, and rising tuition. That coupled with the elimination of tenure means that quality professors will seek employment elsewhere. Yes, local students might have an easier time getting admitted. But the quality of the education they will receive will decline as well. Some academic programs might shrink to the point of being eliminated entirely.
If anything, the university will seek MORE OOS students in order to make up the shortfall, as they pay higher tuition than in-state.
Very sad, as historically UW-Madison has been a standout among state universities.
sorry, mama. The reason this is an issue is because the school is making bad choices with how to spend the money they have. They are finally being forced on a budget and are acting like children rather than adults. The way to make up the shortfall is to cut programs/majors that are cost-heavy or are not drawing enough students to warrant paying a professor to teach 5 students. Programs are bloated because of the unchecked influx of dollars with no accountability.
The ‘quality’ professors are at places like Whitewater and Oshgosh. UW’s professors are there to do their own personal projects and research on the taxpayer’s dime while grad students teach the students. Don’t kid yourself, the quality of education is every bit as good at the 12 (or so) other UW campuses. It is only the prestige that makes UW significantly better than the others.
The elimination of tenure means that professors who are under-performing cannot sit idly back and have the money keep rolling in. I am sure that UW will not have a problem filling those spots with professors who are not afraid of being expected to perform.
Much of the angst on this story is directly related to a sub-set of society that has been drawing greater and greater amounts of the GDP with no accountability and no repercussions for failing to perform.
All the state schools are having their budgets cut; I think Whitewater’s is highest, on a percentage basis.
Almost all research universities like Madison are large institutions whose excellence has been built up over decades if not centuries. You almost never see genuine, sudden changes to their overall reputation.
Any “dramatic” change in “rankings” is almost always due to the sponsoring newspaper or magazine deciding to change their ranking methodology. Sometimes they do this to “improve” their methodology, though a lot of of times it’s done just bring their rankings more into line with “what everyone knows” or to generate change for change’s sake … after all, USNWR won’t sell very many magazines if their list really didn’t change much each year. I think most informed people view this as much more noise than signal.
As to Madison itself - Anybody who’s been involved with universities has seen numerous budget cycles. There’s always a lot of hollering and political posturing, but the real impact is usually much milder than the headlines. In my opinion, the recent state budget cuts to Madison can be managed without too much disruption (besides, half the cutbacks are being offset with other revenue). However, I would be worried if this pattern continued and more cuts were enacted in later budget cycles.
(I’m also not saying I agree with the cutbacks - university budgets aren’t my favorite place to save money to pay for Walker’s tax cuts. But frankly, having seen many budget cutbacks over the last 30 years, I doubt this is going to damage Wisconsin very much).
The change to the tenure policy at UW just brings Wisconsin into line with the other 49 states. In fact, as of now there’s been absolutely no change, but the Regents have still to adopt a final policy. I don’t expect much change to occur when the final product is delivered. However, it is true that some faculty are upset by the fact that changes to the tenure system are even being discussed. I would look to see if there’s been an increase in the number of faculty departures over the last year. My guess is that faculty will complain but almost none will leave; after all, there are very few pastures in the academic world that are greener than Madison.
@Torveaux I am curious why you think that UW professors are somehow not committed to their students? I am currently attending UW and I have found that the professors I have had are always very helpful and open to the students. I have never had a TA teach a lecture for me. It might happen once in a while, but that’s generally a rarity that only happens in the very big intro courses. In addition, from my experience, many of the professors are also very accommodating and enthusiastic to offer opportunities for undergraduates interested in research on campus. Anyways, there are professors who are not good at teaching at every single college campus- it’s not as if UW is unique in that regard. Either way, as a WI resident, I don’t see an extremely valid reason why Walker is so bent on cutting the UW system’s budget.
The budget cuts are bad, period, especially since it’s a budget cut to the ENTIRE UW system, not just UW. It potentially means a drop in quality of education AND research for the entire system, and I remember correctly it makes outside funding and grants more difficult to come by. I certainly don’t want to take the chance that the excellent experience I’ve had so far at UW will become inaccessible or deteriorated for future generations.
Dunno about the global rankings, but UW has only dropped 2 spots in USNews in the past five years, and that is due primarily to two privates jumping over it. Both Boston U and Northeastern are actively working the rankings to their advantage. But, TBF, Illinois also passed UW last year, but yearly movements can be volatile at level. UCI jumped 7 spots last year, after dropping 5 the previous year.
UW-Madison is doing fine.
When you’re one of the top public research universities in the world, folks will try to recruit your faculty. It’s nothing new. Part of this “chat” is due to the recent budget changes/tenure changes making it into those conversations. But those conversations have always been going on…
I wouldn’t take any of these rankings too seriously. UW Madison does better in some (#26 in US News Best Global Universities, #24 in AWRU (Academic Ranking of World Universities) than in others (#50 globally in Times Higher Education World University Rankings, #56 in QS World University Rankings). This is pretty much entirely a reflection of differences in methodology, and all the methodologies are suspect. For example, both QS and THE reward schools that have the highest percentage of international students and international faculty. Nothing against international students or international faculty, but for the life of me I can’t see what that has to do with academic quality.Those metrics are naturally going to reward UK and European universities because they’re located in a region of many small countries where both students and faculty have virtually unlimited freedom of movement across international boundaries, in addition to which British universities have long been a magnet for students from across Britain’s far-flung former empire. And lo and behold, QS lists 4 British universities in the world’s top 10, while THE lists 3 British universities in the top 10 and 6 in the top 25. No doubt this helps them sell magazines in their home UK market.
Which ranking has shown such a drop?? None of the major ones. (USN, AWRU)
This is nothing that a .001% tax on beer wouldn’t fix.
Fixed it for ya 
Gov. Scott Walker has stated that the citizens of the state do not need a world-class state university, rather, a halfway decent state U should be good enough. This was followed by enormous proposed cuts in order to fund tax cuts. Maybe Midwesterners can let us know how many of the proposed funding cuts were actually implemented.
This was all discussed in another thread sometime last year.
I can tell you that people at other universities feel this is a good time to raid Wisconsin, to hire away excellent faculty members who are there.
Here is one article specifically about those most vocal about the cuts. There is also no elimination of tenure, just eliminating the protection of tenure under state law…Wisconsin is the ONLY state that has such a protection. Tenure would be a feature managed by the Regents as it is everywhere else.
I lived in Wisconsin for 6+ years. I know lots of UW grads and lots of grads from the other UW schools. Overall, UW has many more TAs teaching than the other schools. I am sure there are examples of dedicated teachers at UW, but those who are most interested in teaching (as opposed to research) tend to find themselves at the regional schools. Of course, if your field is not especially research driven, that would not really apply.
Typical political wrangling. When someone proposes that budgets get cut at all, the other side tends to come out with the ‘sky is falling’ doomsday scenarios to scare people into thinking there is no way they could possibly find any fat in their budgets. Cities tend to do it by claiming they will need to cut fire/police protection. School districts threaten to cut the most popular or useful programs. Rarely to you see an honest effort to evaluate the programs and determine where actual bloat has occurred. Unlike the private sector, where cuts are real and meaningful, public sector entities rarely cut costs. They have no incentive to do so.
@Torveaux: “the purpose of a state school is to educate the local students, not to be an elitist organization spending tax dollars to boost rankings. One of the best things that could happen for the students in the state of Wisconsin is for this to continue. Maybe more Wisconsin kids can actually get in.”
I agree that any school should admit more in-state students. But why do you think that cutting the budget will help this cause? Surely there could have been other measures to do this…Like lower cut off in SAT and GPA for in-state students, allocating a certain percentage to instate students, like 75% of their total seats must be filled by in-state students, etc… Budget cuts to the university, I think , will not help anyone’s cause… Sure the rebelling professors will leave, and UW can replace them. But will they be of the same quality? And as budget cuts continue, more and more departments would close up. For example, say a Wisconsin student want to study history. But if the history department itself closes up, where will that person go?
I attended UW for graduate school. My wife and many members of her family going back more than 100 years attended UW-Madison. I think I know the place quite well.
UW-Madison will thrive, as it always has with a somewhat more limited budget than its academic peers. I know for a fact that faculty salaries have always been toward the lower end of the Big 10, for example (this varies a lot by discipline), which has meant it’s relatively easy for competitors to tempt UW faculty to come there. Despite that, the overall university resources, the intellectual atmosphere, and the larger environment have limited that turnover.
Governors come and go. Some of the punitive aspects of the current administration (unhappy b/c of the generally liberal leanings of many core faculty – but far from a uniform ideology across fields and disciplines!) will have only symbolic and likely temporary impact. The values of the university administration and faculty are strong. This has always included a commitment to quality undergraduate instruction and experiences.