The University of Wisconsin System recently released data confirming what students attending the state’s public universities already knew: The Great Recession and subsequent cuts to the UW System hurt students, and hit low-income students the hardest. In an era when Wisconsin should broaden both financial aid to students and funding to state universities to help students stay in school, the legislature has narrowed both—and not without consequences.
Unemployment is high, wages are stagnant, tuition increases are wildly outpacing the rate of inflation and many families’ college savings accounts are still well below their pre-recession levels despite recent rallies in America’s stock markets. This confluence of factors has led to a widening gap between the UW System’s lowest-income students and the rest of its students.
As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently reported: “The gap in six-year graduation rates between students from low-income families and those who don’t qualify for Pell grants grew from 13 percent for freshman who entered in fall 2004 to 15 percent for those who started in fall 2006.” I suspect that divide—which is already quite large—will grow even wider as more data becomes available and the true toll that the recession took comes to light.
The current graduation divide between low-income students and students not receiving Pell grants is stark. But statistics cannot capture the true extent of many students’ hardship. While in college, students are supposed to embrace frugality, not undue hardship. Yet many students have done just that. Some students in my classes balance full time jobs with the ostensive status as full-time students. To be sure, their tenacity is impressive. But students shouldn’t have to choose between working to pay for college and working to succeed in college.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The state legislature could act to ameliorate the trouble students face in financing their education. Unfortunately, though, the legislature has compounded the problem. In 2002, the state of Wisconsin paid 61 percent of the cost of educating students at UW schools. Last year—just 10 years later—that percentage had been cut in half and dropped to just 30 percent of the cost, according to the University of Wisconsin System Fact Book. And according to the Center for the Study of Education Policy, the state’s spending on education fell by more than 20 percent in 2012. To close the gap in funding and maintain quality institutions of higher education, UW schools have dolled out tuition increases to students.
Quite simply, the cuts to UW schools that have resulted in tuition increases amid an economic crisis have priced many students out of the market for a University of Wisconsin System degree. And those low-income students who are able to stay in school are having a harder time graduating on time. I’ve frequently used this column to lament those cuts and call for broadened investment in public higher education. Unfortunately, my efforts have been to no avail. Nevertheless, the issue still merits attention.
So what will be the consequences? Attaining middle class status in the 21st Century economy will almost invariably require a college degree, so even higher levels of income inequality can be expected, as fewer and fewer low-income students can afford to go to college. What’s more, we can expect a less-educated state citizenry and a future workforce saddled with debt taken out to finance their education.
That’s no formula for long-term economic prosperity. In fact, the myopic cuts to the state’s university system may come at the cost of the state’s long-term economic health.
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