As a college student, I am deeply concerned by the lack of access to higher education. I urge you to support the following items:
1. TUITION STRATIFICATION: freezing tuition for two year institutions; capping tuition at the rate of inflation for four year institutions
2. VETERAN TUITION REMISSION funded fully through State GPR Dollars
3. INCREASING PAY and Improving recruitment and retention of UW Staff and Faculty strictly from GPR dollars
4. DOMESTIC PARTNER BENEFITS for all UW System employees
5. FULL FUNDING of mental health counseling programs
6. INCREASE the average Wisconsin Higher Education Grant (WHEG), along with a dollar for dollar statutory link between the average tuition increase and the average WHEG Award
7. INCREASE FUNDING for the Advanced Opportunity Program Award
8. INCREASE FUNDING for the Lawton Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant Award to match the WHEG award
9. INCREASE FUNDING for Inclusive Excellence Program
10. SUPPORT the allocation of capitol money (State GPR dollars) towards SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT in the UW System.
Wisconsin Biennial State Budget Priorities 2009-11
United Council of UW Students
January 2009
This decade has been marked with a quarter billion dollar cut to the University of Wisconsin (UW) System. The UW System may have recovered, but UW Students of this decade have never recovered. The UW System in 2000 was an institution where students could pay for tuition out of pocket with minimal family contribution or loans. The UW of 2008 is a UW where loans are a given and students opt out of higher education based on sheer fear of the cost. This is something like we have never experienced before. In 2006-2007, 67% of those resident undergraduate students who completed their degree had student loan debt averaging $21,104.
The Governor, and particularly the legislator, has the unique opportunity to replace that quarter billion dollar cut that priced students out of higher education. Never should access to higher education be an issue of taking out more high interest federal loans. It should be an issue of access to any UW school of a resident's choice.
With the 2009-11 biennial budgets, we have the opportunity notably to assist students who are already in school. We have the opportunity to expand access to a new generation of students, possibly the largest generation of college students in over twenty years. In our rapid changing state, higher education is more neccessary than ever.
In your next biennial budget, we urge the legislature to pass:
- An increase of no more than 3% ("inflation") for tuition at four year University of Wisconsin system schools
- A tuition freeze for two-year UW system colleges
- Increased state funding for the Wisconsin Higher Education Grant (WHEG) by $29 million over the biennium
- Increased state funding for the Lawton Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant (LMURG) by $700,000 over the biennium
- Dollar for Dollar Increase State Statue for the WHEG and LMURG, at an estimated $28 million
- Increased state funding for the Advanced Opportunity Fellowship by $885,000 over the biennium
- Funding for the Inclusive Excellence Program
- Full funding for UW Colleges mental health counseling programs by $565,000 of GPR Dollars
- Increasing faculty pay strictly from state GPR dollars
- Domestic Partner Benefits for all UW System employees, approximately $1.7 million
- Increased allocation for University of Wisconsin System sustainable development growth at $100,000
