Oh, Wisconsin. The Republicans want to strangle their university system.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers had proposed a $305 million increase for the UW System over the next two school years.
Republican lawmakers instead cut state funding for campuses by $32 million in an effort to defund diversity offices, which they see as a waste of money.
UW-Madison will bear the brunt, losing $7 million, or 44%, of this year’s $16 million cut. The university enrolls about one-third of UW System students. UW-Madison declined to comment on the cut.
Diversity offices are a waste of money? Only if you think only wealthy and middle class white people deserve a university education…which, I will admit, is true to the Republican ethos. Don’t worry, though, they’re dangling a carrot with the promise of restoring the money. All the university has to do is focus on vocational programs and cut all the diversity and equity programs. This is
UW System has a chance to recoup the $32 million budget cut. Officials must present a plan to the Republican-controlled budget-writing committee on how campuses would spend the money on workforce development.
The Regents will receive a preview of the plan in October, said UW System chief finance officer Sean Nelson. Spending will focus on engineering, data, science and nursing programs.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said the UW System won’t get its money back unless it eliminates diversity and equity programs — an idea UW officials have previously shot down.
“Let’s hope these campuses start by eliminating their unnecessary (diversity, equity and inclusion) positions,” he said in a statement responding to the latest furlough news. “It would be a first step in showing they’re serious about cutting wasteful spending, shoring up their deficits, and working with the Legislature to develop sustainable long-term funding solutions.”
Well, great. My daughter is currently on the job market, and the kinds of jobs she’s looking for are in biomedical computing — so those positions aren’t in immediate danger. But a healthy workplace in academia or industry requires a good balance, and also requires diversity, so this is a long-term threat.
Another long-term problem is that we’ve been starving the universities in Minnesota as well as Wisconsin.
Ten of the 13 universities are projecting deficits this year, too, and many are taking significant action to rein in spending. UW-Oshkosh is laying off 200 employees and mandating furloughs for all other staff. UW-Parkside and UW-Platteville are considering similar measures.
Most campuses are using money from a tuition increase to offset their deficits. The Regents voted earlier this year to increase in-state undergraduate tuition across all 13 universities by about 5%. It was the first time since 2012.
Many campuses are also tapping tuition balances, which is what campuses carry over as their main source of reserves. They’ve been spending down their reserves for more than a decade. UW-Oshkosh, for example, said it expects to deplete its balances by the end of this school year.
“This is not sustainable,” Rothman put it plainly.
Again, this is the Republican agenda. Diversity programs are just the latest crack in the system that they’re hammering on, but make no mistake: the ultimate goal is the destruction of all of higher ed.
Because they love the poorly educated as Trump once famously said.
The better educated, better at thinking and better informed – tend NOT to vote Repugliklan.
Except for a handful of exclusive colleges for the children of the new aristocracy, of course…
“workforce development”
O brave new world…
Canadian universities must be rubbing their hands when they look at what\s happening or about to happen with some American schools. The word will eventually get around abroad that some American schools aren’t good places to study anymore for certain fields, or in general. So maybe it’s time to reconsider that Canadian university you were looking at. And like the US foreign students pay a lot more to study in Canadian schools than Canadians do.
What? Extortion is American as apple pie.
I say: Diversity is what provides the widest range of experience and enriches our society and Universities.
These tiny-minded rtwingnut Repugnantcants have no perspective on what education should be!
The article said: must present a plan to the Republican-controlled budget-writing committee on how campuses would spend the money on workforce development.
I reply: Universities are not Trade Tech Schools.(both are needed) Universities are responsible for providing a broad education. A broadly educated mind, taught how to think and given knowledge of history and society as well as ‘major sequence’ concentration is crucial.
I am beginning to think the Republicans have been infected with an Alien brain parasite to soften us up for the coming conquest, the way missionaries were used in the past.
We have a few ‘neoliberal’ conservatives like this in Sweden, but fortunately they have -so far- only taken over the odd mid-sized town causing great damage to libraries and culture.
Wisconsin higher ed doesn’t have it nearly so bad as that in the state just before them alphabetically:
I Graduated From West Virginia University. The Travesty Unfolding There Is Breaking My Heart.:
E. Gordon Gee is clearly a part of the shape-shifting space lizard spearhead force, preparing the ground for the takeover.