Graduates are
employed and working within six
months and
right here in Wisconsin.
They're certainly in demand.
Our latest graduate outcomes report
released on Tuesday this week showed
that median wages for associate
degree graduates were over $60,000
so that we know
that these credentials are in demand
and a great value for Wisconsin
residents.
I will just add on to what Eric
and Leila had offered.
I think we have to step back
and first ask the question.
And the way I would answer it is
that education is a public good.
It's not just for the individual
student. Because I think you have to
ask the questions, where is the next
teacher going to come from?
Where is the nurse going to from?
Where is next engineer going to to
come? Where is a next person
who's going to be coming out of the
Tech College and doing work
that helps support the economy?
So I would start from that
standpoint. At the Universities of
Wisconsin, we have
done survey work most recently
about six months ago that indicated
that we are the lowest cost
public university system in the
Midwest and beyond.
We have done our best to try
to maintain our tuition
at levels that are affordable.
We have tried to increase over the
last decade. We have doubled the
amount of institutional aid that we
provide to students, so that
is the tuition remission and support
that we provide to them, but there's
a limit to our ability to do that
and still deliver the quality
of education our students deserve
and expect.
And one of the things I will tell
you is when we did that survey,
the good news was we are
relatively affordable.
We offer, I believe, great value
to our students, but that survey
also showed that we are educating
fewer students today on a percentage
basis of lower socioeconomic means
and we were 10 years ago.
If this legislation stands
as it is currently presented,
that number is going to get worse.
And I would submit to you Wisconsin
doesn't have the flexibility
to allow that to happen.
We need people going on to higher
education to fill the jobs
that the great employers of this
state are creating or those jobs are
going to move elsewhere.
We need those jobs so people can
have that life-changing event,
that trajectory-changing event in
their lives, giving them social
mobility to make sure that they
may be able to better than the past
generation did.
That's what this is all about.
That's why this is critical.
And I think the suggestion that,
well, we should just put it back on
tuition is
a short sight. This is an investment
in the future of our state.
It is an investment in the
citizens of the state of Wisconsin.
A question for all three presidents.
Are your institutions taking steps
to contact Congress directly to
encourage them to reverse this
bill? And if so, what steps are you
taking to encourage them to do this?
I can comment what we've been
doing at the Universities of
Wisconsin.
I have talked to almost every
member of the Wisconsin delegation
on this very issue.
We meet with them.
We have people in Washington
frequently talking to
legislators about what's going on.
We are working through our national
organizations as well, of which we
are members, to advocate
for ensuring that
we protect this financial
aid and avoid this
narrowing of resources that are
going on to do that are
really supporting students that
really need that support.
But we're also talking to the public
because I think it's important.
It's one of the reasons we're having
the conversation today It is
important that the public understand
the impact because our legislators
listen to their constituents And
I think you know the the
conversations I've had with our
legislators I think they appreciate
the value of higher education
in the state and its importance To
the state of Wisconsin and we are
going to continue those advocacy
efforts
I was personally in Washington D.C.
Less than two weeks ago meeting with
policy makers to talk about these
issues.
We've also stayed
in constant contact with their staff
and with congressional, the entire
congressional delegation trying to
help them understand the impact to
their constituents back here in
Wisconsin.
I also have been speaking to members
of our congressional delegation,
both in the House and the Senate, as
have members of the WICU staff,
and we've been asking our individual
presidents and other leaders
on our campuses to reach out to them
as well. We've had many
conversations, and as President
Rothman mentioned, there is an
understanding of the value of higher
education for many members of
delegation, but despite
that, the bill passed this morning.
Other questions?
What kind of effect do you think
these changes would have on
enrollment at your institutions?
Well, there's a lot of elements of
the bill that will impact
undergraduate students and there's
significant number that will have
impact graduate students.
I suspect that the students with
the least ability to pay,
we will lose some of those students
as a result of the elements
of this bill.
They won't be able to get enough
money in Pell Grant, they won't
able to obtain any
loan programs that they need to
obtain and they will not be able
attend. And on the graduate side,
I fear what this impact
of the limiting of the loan
programs will do for
students particularly in the
professional fields, doctors,
lawyers, dentists.
Physician assistants in other other
fields. So we will have students who
are unable to continue as a result
of this. We're hoping of course that
as the process continues as the
Senate gets involved and then the
House and the Senate work together
to come up with a bill they can both
agree on that some of these
provisions will be made more
helpful for our students.
I mean, certainly enrollment is a
piece of this, but it's about
students.
It's about the students standing up
here today and the students that
they represent.
That's what this is about in my
mind. And it's, about giving
people the opportunity to
have that higher education
experience that can change their
lives. And I think back to the
period I mentioned in my opening
comments about the GI
bill and how it supported
veterans coming out of world war
two.
I'm standing here today because of
the GI Bill.
My father was a recipient,
allowed him to go on to higher
education.
He then encouraged me to go onto
higher education, that's
the impact that this has and it's
exponential.
It is exponential and it
is about the students.
I suspect each of our
systems can manage
the enrollment issue.
But I think the students coming up
today deserve the
same opportunity that generations
past have gotten.
That, in my mind, is what this bill
is about.
And that's why we are advocating to
support that our
students have access to that aid,
because they will pay it back
multiple times in terms of what they
contribute to society.
I'll echo those comments while
this bill would certainly
reduce access
and opportunity in the state of
Wisconsin and across the country.
We'll certainly see some students
who ironically take fewer credits
because they just can't afford to
take more and cover their
cost of living at the same time.
I think Wisconsin's employers will
also be hurt by this.
As we see fewer
students.
Pursuing higher education,
fewer students who are able to
complete on time,
Wisconsin's employers will be
waiting longer for those
folks to join them at the high
skill, high wage
jobs that we know we have all over
Wisconsin right now that are
unfilled.
Do you speak to just more
broadly, obviously you're here
meeting and talking about this bill
today, but we've seen a series of
comments from the president,
lawsuits, additional funding
threats coming down the pipeline.
I guess how are you guys leading
these universities at a time
when there's still so much
uncertainty about what can come next
on top of this bill?
I think what we do is we
remain focused on our mission
and we do our best
and to operate on uncertainty
is never easy, it's
not a whole lot of fun, but we
never lose sight of the mission and
at the University of Wisconsin
for us it's 164,400
students that are being in
our in our 13 universities.
Our mission is to ensure that they
are successful and we will do
whatever it takes to try to
position ourselves to make sure that
we can continue to do that because
we know how important it is for
those individuals, but we also
know how important that is for the
state of Wisconsin.
I would say specific issues
that have come from the White House
have impacted international
students, have impacted the
research that our institutions are
doing, and
threaten future research
and future international students
in particular.
But as President Rothman said,
our focus in WICU schools
and I'm sure in the
technical colleges as well is to
focus on our students and our
missions.
Absolutely, we remain focused on
our mission, serving our students
every day, making ourselves
as accessible and available to
support those students as we can
possibly be and continue
to deliver for the taxpayers here
in Wisconsin.
Under this current proposal,
Wisconsin colleges in
general could risk losing access to
federal aid if their students don't
make a return on their investment,
if they don't see financial gains
from their degrees.
What consequences would this have
for the long term future of
technical colleges?
Well, everything we do here in the
technical college system is driven
by employers and our local
economies.
So I'm very confident
that our credentials are in demand.
We don't offer programs if our
students do not get jobs at the end
of them. We don't offer programs,
if local employers do
not sign on to that and co-sign
that and say, yes, these are the
skills and credentials that I am
looking for in my business that's
required for every program that's
approved in my system.
So I'm very confident that
we could show a return on investment
as long as the
measuring stick is fair.
We know what our graduates are
making as soon as they graduate and
we know where they're going to work
and it's right here in Wisconsin.
So I am very confident in the
product that we're putting out.
Alright, thank you.
Thank you very much for being here.
I appreciate it.
Thank you very much.