Representative Daniel Riemer has expressed his dissatisfaction with Gov. Walker’s UW policy.
The Cap Times has reported:
Saving money is a good idea, but we also know that so-called “savings” are often a gimmick. As shoppers we’ve all had our intelligence insulted when companies reduce the quantity of soap or a candy bar but advertise it as — “same great price.” And we’ve thought about “saving money” by delaying maintenance and repairs on our house or car only to get a bigger bill later on.
The same logic is at play in Gov. Scott Walker’s massive budget cuts to the University of Wisconsin. The UW is one of the best deals in the United States. UW-Madison’s in-state tuition is the third lowest of the top 50 universities in the U.S. Meanwhile, according to the Goldwater Institute, UW-Milwaukee, now a Carnegie top-ranked Research One (R1) university, has among the lowest costs to educate per student of any R1 or R2 university in the country. In short, both research universities are low-cost models for the nation, especially UW-Milwaukee. Both of these great research universities now also get less than 20 percent of their funding from the state budget.
Wisconsin went into the 2008 economic crisis with median incomes higher than the national average. Today, thanks in large part to the misguided policies of Walker and the Legislature, our incomes have fallen under the national average. This is no time to cut our universities that grow middle-class incomes.
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