The two-year budget recently signed into law by Governor Walker contains significant cuts to higher education in Wisconsin. Over the next two years, core state support for UW universities and colleges is reduced by $250 million, and state support for the technical colleges is reduced by more than $70 million.
These cuts follow a trend of reduced support for higher education, as state funding continues to make up a smaller portion of the funds Wisconsin public universities use to operate. In fiscal year 2001, state funding made up one out of every three dollars the UW System schools utilized. Ten years later, state funding makes up only one out of every five dollars. Over a similar period, state support for Wisconsin’s technical colleges went from approximately 20% of costs to less than 14%. You can read this May 2011 Wisconsin Budget Project blog post for more about the state’s declining support for technical colleges.These funding cuts to higher education in Wisconsin come at a poor time. Unemployment is still at elevated levels, especially for those with lower educational attainment. Incomes are largely stagnant, except for those with college degrees. As of 2008, just 25.7% of Wisconsinites had a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 27.7% nationwide.
These cuts are made as technical colleges see exploding demand as laid off workers enter their programs to upgrade their skills and find employment. For example, Blackhawk Technical College in Janesville has seen an enrollment increase of 57% in the last two years. Due to these cuts in the state budget, Blackhawk Tech is estimated to lose more than $1.3 million in fiscal year 2012.
Cutting state support for higher education institutions also tends to drive tuition increases as schools are forced to look for other ways to raise revenue. As state funding as a proportion of UW system schools’ total funding has dropped by more than 10% over the last decade, tuition’s proportion of overall funding has been on the rise.
As the UW-Whitewater Faculty Senate stated in March, “These deep budget cuts to higher education and the ensuing ‘brain drain’ will negatively impact Wisconsin’s higher education as well as the preparations of a well-educated workforce and citizenry for years to come.”
The unfortunate timing of these cuts may work to hamper the growth of Wisconsin’s workforce when it’s needed most.
Ben Nerad
Tomorrow—Way #16: Cuts to Mass Transit
About the series: “31 Ways in 31 Days” is a series of posts to the WCCF blog exploring the recently-passed biennial budget’s impact on children and families in Wisconsin. Each day in July, we are posting a description of one way the budget will affect kids and families, with an eye toward what should be done going forward to help improve outcomes and move us closer to the goal of making Wisconsin a place where every child has the opportunity to grow up, learn, and thrive in a safe, healthy, economically secure home and community.
