The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents approved a resolution Thursday that includes a system-wide tuition freeze for all UW undergraduate and graduate students as well as slight increases to students’ segregated fees and room-and-board costs.
The regents discussed the possibility of an expanded tuition freeze after the state Legislature and Gov. Scott Walker passed the 2013-’15 state budget, which called for a two-year tuition freeze for all in-state undergraduate students at UW schools. The board’s Thursday decision extends that freeze to out-of-state undergraduate students and all graduate students, meaning all students in the UW System will continue to pay tuition at the 2012-’13 level for at least another year.
Associated Students of Madison Press Office Director Grace Bolt said ASM is excited about the new across-the-board tuition freeze for the UW System.
“[The freeze] is an amazing accomplishment for students in Wisconsin,” Bolt said.
The resolution also included a section that calls for a rise in the cost of room and board and the cost of segregated fees, which are student-paid instructional fees used for university services, programs and facilities. Bolt said the increase in segregated fees will be valuable to students as ASM assigns funding to the organizations it feels are most beneficial to students.
Segregated fees will rise by an average of 5.5 percent, or $19, and room-and-board costs will rise by an average of 3 percent, or $125, across the UW System, according to Senior Vice President of Administration and Fiscal Affairs David Miller.
The tuition freeze and subsequent decisions from the Board of Regents came as a result of a state audit conducted earlier in the year, which revealed the UW System was operating with approximately $648 million in unrestricted funding. The audit turned the board’s relations with the state Legislature sour and served as a basis for the reduction of a state budget provision that would have granted the UW System a funding increase of approximately $181 million.
The state’s Joint Finance Committee decided to reduce state funding, causing the UW System to cover more of the system’s operating costs without state aid, in an effort to reduce the surplus over time.
Outgoing University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor David Ward said during the Regent’s meeting the funding reductions and tuition freeze will contribute to a larger issue the UW System has repeatedly had to deal with: failing to keep top-level professors because of a lack of available money to pay salaries. Ward described UW-Madison’s continued lack of salary capability in comparison to other Big Ten universities' as a “race to the bottom.” He also said the university’s efforts to increase spending to keep up with competing universities has “come by water torture since 1990.”
“We are so out-priced that it’s embarrassing,” Ward said while talking about UW-Madison’s graduate schools. “We are embarrassing ourselves by having bargain basement prices.”
Board members and UW System President Kevin Reilly recognized the salary discrepancy as an issue during the meeting and decided to continue discussion at a later date.
The Board of Regents will meet again Friday to continue discussions.
