While several UW campuses were given permission by the state Board of Regents last week to raise tuition to cope with Governor Scott Walker's budget cuts, the University of Wisconsin at Madison is also cutting tens of thousands of hours of employment opportunities for students.
School officials say the cuts are necessary to make up for an $86 million hole in their budget created by Governor Walker's cuts.
Human Resources cut 6,500 hours of student employment, while 6,300 fewer hours of student employment were available for work on research and sponsored programs, UW-Madison officials reported. “Not only do these reductions decrease the level of service, but they also reduce learning opportunities and financial support for students,” the update stated. [...]
In addition, the anticipated cutting of a total of 418 faculty and staff positions over the 2015-2017 biennium, mainly through attrition, has left the campus unable to expand enrollment in areas of increased student interest like business, engineering and nursing.
The University of Wisconsin system and particularly the campus at Madison are among some of the best schools in the nation but, for reasons, Governor Walker and the state legislature do not believe that is a reputation worth protecting. They don't believe it's worth an investment.
If preserving and promoting one of the best schools in the country isn't worth investing in, what is worth an investment? As they say, the proof is in the pudding. Governor Walker handed $250 million over to the wealthy owners of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team immediately after cutting $250 million from higher education.
That's only the most recent insult. Walker's legacy is one of doling out generous tax breaks to corporations that don't create jobs or significiantly contribute to the state's economy. As you may recall, Governor Walker's signature job creation agency which dispensed tax breaks and incentives was shut down because it didn't actually track job creation. In fact, the agency distributed incentives to companies that shipped jobs out of the state and overseas.