UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank made an impassioned address at a University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents meeting Thursday, deeming proposed budget cuts initiated by Gov. Scott Walker to be "too big" for the state's flagship university to handle.
After praising a "great year” for UW-Madison, Blank turned her attention to the proposed $300 million budget cut to the entire UW System, saying the resulting hole in the UW-Madison budget would amount to $91 million.
“I’ve heard it said that UW-Madison can cope with this ... better than the other schools in the System,” Blank said. “But I still don’t know how I’m going to cope come July 1st — the cut is simply too big.”
Blank argued the cut would deal a blow to the university’s reputation, making it harder to remain competitive against peer institutions in retaining and attracting faculty.
“As a result of these hurdles, other schools will come raid our best faculty,” she said.
The chancellor reiterated her plan to raise out-of-state and professional school tuition to help soften the impact of the cuts and place the school in line with its Big Ten counterparts.
UW-Madison's nonresident undergraduate tuition is currently $26,660, ahead of only three schools in the Big Ten, while its tuition for most graduate programs also falls below the conference average.
“I’m not aware of any peer institutions facing cuts of this scale,” Blank said. “Raising [out-of-state and professional school] tuition is market value we need to leverage. We shouldn’t be comparing ourselves [to schools like] Iowa.”
UW System President Ray Cross struck a more pragmatic tone, urging care when approaching the cuts as the full details and their repercussions are not yet known.
“We have to be cautious because there is so much we don’t know,” Cross said. “But we have an obligation to mitigate these cuts, should they happen.”
Cross acknowledged the benefits that increased autonomy, a condition of the budget cut, would bring for the UW System.
“There is a new opportunity for the UW System in its institutions and there is a significant challenge as well,” he said. “We need to nuance things in a way to make sense.”
