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The

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cost of attending University of Wisconsin Schools is going up in the fall.

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This month the UW Board of Regents approved a 2% tuition hike for in-state undergraduate

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students plus roughly commesurate increases in fees and room and board.

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That will put UW Madison at $12,416 on the high end and UW Parkside at $8,851 at the

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lowest price point.

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It's the fourth tuition increase in a row after a 10-year freeze.

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In the midst of increasing cost pressures on families, how reasonable is the tuition

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hike?

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We're joined by Professor in the UW Madison Department of Education Policy, Taylor O'Dell, and thanks

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for being here.

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Thanks for having me.

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So a 2% tuition hike on paper seems really modest, but at a time as we said when people

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question the value of a college degree, does it turn some people away?

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I think it's very important to acknowledge that a 2% increase is very real money for

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students and families.

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I think at the same time we also have to acknowledge that costs are going up for all of us, including

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organizations and businesses like the Universities of Wisconsin.

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2% is relatively modest and predictable and below the rate of inflation right now.

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It doesn't mean it doesn't have important conversations about dollars and cents at the

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end of the day, but what students and families should really care about is the net price

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of college.

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So when you quote that $12,000 or that $8,000, that's what we call the sticker price, what

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you see on the website, but from that we know people get grants and scholarships and that

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pulls it down to what we call the net price, the check that you have to write at the end

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of the day to be able to enroll.

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And that number has actually been relatively flat over the last several years because UW

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is taking money from these tuition increases and putting it back into financial aid.

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It's a 30% decline in highest paying international students and volatile federal research funding.

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What is a university to do except use that tuition lever?

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That's a great question.

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UW, the Universities of Wisconsin have three primary revenue sources, right?

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Federal grants, which we are among the top in the nation at securing, we enroll students

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who pay tuition and fees and we receive funding from the state.

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State support has long stagnated with the exception of a recent increase.

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And so tuition dollars are a primary way of raising funds.

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With a tuition freeze for many, many years, our ability to do that was hamstrung.

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And so it quite literally strangled some of the campuses.

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We benefit from having international students and even students from out of state who pay

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higher tuition rates because they can afford it.

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They are mobile geographic for colleges.

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With a decline in international student enrollment, there aren't many other students that we

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can look to except for our in-state students, especially now because the state has begun

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to increasingly regulate our ability to even draw students from Minnesota and Iowa and

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other out-of-state partners.

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So how kind of in jeopardy are the finances of the Universities of Wisconsin given all

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of these factors?

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It's in a very serious position, right?

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We've already seen campus closures of many regional campuses.

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We've seen cuts to academic programs.

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We've seen staff and faculty restructurings.

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And so no one wants to raise prices.

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If you're a business owner, you don't want to walk out and show your customers raising

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prices.

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The University doesn't want to do that either.

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We want more people to access and have access to a college education, like you said, for

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upper social and economic mobility.

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But when the state is no longer a primary funding partner, federal research and grants

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landscape is certainly uncertain, tuition is one of the only livers left.

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So some Republican state policy makers are super angry about this tuition increase saying

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it's the fourth in the row after a state budget gave the system $256 million.

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What about that persuasion?

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Yeah.

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I think the average Wisconsinite should also be super angry about that characterization.

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So $256 million is a big number and it's a very important investment.

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It's however a biennial increase.

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So we have to divide that by two because it's going to be the 120 something million

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every year.

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And just to put that in context, the university leverages.

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It's the state's largest public employer and its operating budget is around $7 billion.

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And so that increase is less than almost one and a half percent.

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So substantially below inflation and more importantly, that $256 million came with a

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lot of important caveats.

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It's importantly an unfunded salary raise for faculty and staff across the institution.

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So no other piece of state government has unfunded mandates in that same way.

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So we're required to raise salaries by 2% for all faculty and staff, but the state didn't

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put in the money to fully fund that raise.

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And so the Regents have said that the tuition increase will predominantly fund faculty

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and staff salary increases mandated.

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Well, that's another piece that some policymakers are unhappy about because they say the number

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of staff has gone up, whereas the number of students has not.

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So many people when they think about staff increases on cross campus, we use this federal

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survey where we report people in these huge buckets.

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Do they teach?

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Do they work?

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Are they administrative in different ways?

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It doesn't capture the granularity of what those staff are actually doing.

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So if we hire more students to provide career exploration or oversee internships for students

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or help them get placements with employers, those are staff members and those are very

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valuable staff members.

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I'd be happy to double or triple those numbers.

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And so it's a really nuanced conversation, right?

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Are there efficiencies to be had?

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Of course.

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But we need to have better data and a more frank conversation around what staff are

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actually increasing.

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All right.

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Well, we leave it there.

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Taylor Oedle.

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Thanks very much.

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Thanks.

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And I'll see you next time.