Aboard a tour bus in Madison early Tuesday morning, University of Wisconsin System President Raymond Cross took part in something a bit unusual for the mobile setting: He discussed higher education.
C-SPAN interviewed the system leader as part of the Washington Journal’s month-long Big Ten-tour installment of higher education policies. The news vehicle is traveling across the country to interview officials at all 14 universities about issues related to public policy and to allow local community members to pick the leaders’ brains.
Cross’s Sept. 16 conversation focused heavily on college affordability, an issue the president has articulated as one of his priorities in the past.
He highlighted the current two-year tuition freeze and the system’s efforts to create more opportunities for students to receive financial aid at the 13 colleges and 13 universities across the state.
“We’re in the second year of the tuition freeze and [the Board of Regents] is proposing that in the next two years we also freeze tuition. We think we can do it for two more years,” Cross said. “That does put some strain on us, there’s no question about that. But we believe that affordability is really, really an important issue.”
While the issue of student debt is prevalent, Cross said a college degree is still worth the money students pay. He said he believes higher education brings more than just academic classes and the prospect of economic security, but also a population of informed citizens and a larger talent pool.
“I don’t think it should be measured just on an economic scale; the value of a university education goes beyond that,” Cross said. “It’s important to understand what it means to have an educated citizenry; that's the fundamental piece of what a higher education experience is all about.”
The president also said the system is shifting and changing to fit the needs of every type of student, not just those traditionally associated with college.
The UW System currently offers around 5,400 online courses, Cross said, and has become a pioneer in the area of competency-based learning.
Cross was a key player in the system’s creation of the UW Flexible Option program created in June 2012, which is a degree program tailored to adults who may have attended college or university but never received their degree.
The second-year president also added more work can be done to prepare Wisconsin high school students for the transition to higher education, an effort he has incorporated financially into his biennial budget proposal.
“We badly need to make sure that students get into the educational pipeline, that they succeed and retain in that educational pipeline, and that we connect them to businesses and opportunities both for their career and for their life here in Wisconsin,” Cross said.
