The cost of attending University of
Wisconsin schools is going up
in the fall.
This month, the UW Board
of Regents approved a 2%
tuition hike for in-state
undergraduate students plus
roughly commensurate increases in
fees and room and board.
That will put UW Madison at
$12,416
on the high end and UW
Parkside at $8,851
at the lowest price point.
It's the fourth tuition increase in
a row after a 10-year freeze.
In the midst of increasing cost
pressures on families, how
reasonable is the tuition hike?
We're joined by a professor in
the UW-Madison Department of
Education Policy, Taylor Odle,
and thanks for being here.
Thanks for having me.
So a 2% tuition hike
on paper seems really
modest, but at a time, as we said,
when people question the value
of a college degree, does it turn
some people away?
I think it's very important
to acknowledge that a 2% increase is
very real money for students and
families.
I think at the same time we also
have to acknowledge costs are going
up for all of us including
organizations and businesses like
the universities of Wisconsin.
2% is relatively modest
and predictable and below the rate
of inflation right now.
It doesn't mean it doesn't have
important conversations about
dollars and cents at the end of the
day, but what students and family
should really care about is the net
price of college.
So when you quote that $12,000 or
that $8,000, that's what we call the
sticker price, what you see on the
website.
But from that, we know people get
grants and scholarships, and that
pulls it down to what we called the
net price, the check that you have
to write at the end of the day to be
able to enroll.
And that number has actually been
relatively flat over the last
several years because UW is
taking money from these tuition
increases and putting it back into
financial aid.
With a 30% decline in
highest paying international
students and
volatile federal research funding,
what is a university to
do except use that tuition
lever?
That's a great question.
UW, the universities of Wisconsin
have three primary revenue sources,
right? Federal grants, which we are
among the top in the nation at
securing.
We enroll students who pay tuition
and fees, and we receive funding
from the state.
State support has long stagnated,
with the exception of a recent
increase.
And so tuition dollars are our
primary way of raising funds.
With a tuition freeze for many,
many years, our ability to do that
was hamstrung.
And so it. Quite literally strangled
some of the campuses.
We benefit from having international
students and even students from out
of state who pay higher tuition
rates because they can afford it.
They are mobile, geographic for
colleges.
With a decline in international
student enrollment, there aren't
many other students that we can look
to except for our in-state students,
especially now because the state has
begun to increasingly regulate our
ability to even draw students from
Minnesota and Iowa and other
out-of-state partners.
So how kind of in
jeopardy are the finances of
the universities of Wisconsin given
all of these factors?
It's at a very serious position,
right? We've already seen campus
closures of many regional campuses.
We've seen cuts to academic
programs. We've see staff and
faculty restructurings.
And so no one wants to
raise prices.
If you're a business owner, you
don't wanna walk out and show your
customers raising prices.
The university doesn't wanna do that
either. We want more people to
access and have access to
a college education, like you said,
for upper social and economic
mobility.
But when the state is no longer a
primary funding partner, federal
research and grants landscape is
certainly uncertain.
Tuition is one of the only livers
left.
So some Republican state
policy makers are super angry about
this tuition increase, saying it's,
you know, the fourth in the row
after a state budget
gave the system $256
million.
What about that persuasion?
Yeah
I think the average
Wisconsinite should also be super
angry about that characterization.
So, 256 million is a big number
and it's a very important
investment.
It's however a biennial increase, so
we have to divide that by two
because it's going to be the
120-something million every year.
And just to put that in context,
the university leverages, it's the
state's largest public employer and
its operating budget is around $7
billion.
And so that increase is less than
almost 1.5%.
So, substantially below
inflation, and more importantly,
that $256 million came with
a lot of important caveats.
Most importantly, an unfunded
salary raise for
faculty and staff across the
institution.
So, no other piece of
state government has unfunding
mandates in that same way.
So, we're required to raise
salaries by 2% for all faculty
and staff, but the state didn't put
in the money to fully fund that
raise. And so the regents have said
that. The tuition increase will
predominately fund faculty
and staff salary increases mandated.
Well, that's another piece
that some policy makers
are unhappy about because they
say the number of staff has
gone up, whereas the
number of students has not.
So many people, when they think
about staff increases on
cross-campus, we use this federal
survey where we report people in
these huge buckets.
Do they teach?
Do they work?
Are they administrative in different
ways? It doesn't capture the
granularity of what those staff are
actually doing.
So if we hire more students to
provide career exploration or
oversee internships for students or
help them get placements with
employers, those are staff members
and those are very valuable staff
members. I'd be happy to double or
triple those numbers.
And so. It's a really nuanced
conversation, right?
Are there efficiencies to be had?
Of course, but we need to
have better data and a more frank
conversation around what staff are
actually increasing.
Alright, well we leave it there.
Taylor Odle, thanks very much.
Thanks.
For more on this and other issues
facing Wisconsin, visit our website
at pbswisconsin.org and
then click on the news tab.
That's our program for tonight.
I'm Frederica Freiberg.
Have a good weekend.