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 commesurate 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 Professor in the UW Madison Department of Education Policy, Taylor O'Dell, 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 that 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 families 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 call 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.
It's 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 a 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 in a very serious position, right?
We've already seen campus closures of many regional campuses.
We've seen cuts to academic programs.
We've seen staff and faculty restructurings.
And so no one wants to raise prices.
If you're a business owner, you don't want to walk out and show your customers raising
prices.
The University doesn't want to 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 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 one and a half percent.
So substantially below inflation and more importantly, that $256 million came with a
lot of important caveats.
It's importantly an unfunded salary raise for faculty and staff across the institution.
So no other piece of state government has unfunded 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 predominantly fund faculty
and staff salary increases mandated.
Well, that's another piece that some policymakers 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.
All right.
Well, we leave it there.
Taylor Oedle.
Thanks very much.
Thanks.
And I'll see you next time.