Gov. Scott Walker officially signed four college affordability bills into law Monday, despite Democrats alleging the proposals don’t do enough.
Two of the bills are concerned with technical college students. One increases funding for Wisconsin grants to technical college students by providing the Higher Educational Aids Board, which administers the Wisconsin grants program, with an additional $500,000 in the next two years. The other bill creates a grant program for students who encounter financial emergencies while attending college.
A third bill adds two positions to the Department of Workforce Development in order to coordinate internships with higher education and businesses. Walker said the goal of the program is for DWD to connect employers to students at universities and technical colleges.
“In addition to making college more affordable, it is also important to provide Wisconsin students with hands-on experience in fields they are interested in or want to pursue for their future careers,” Walker said in a statement. “This is just one step we can take to ensure the future success of our students, and looking forward, we will continue our work to strengthen Wisconsin’s workforce.”
The last bill in the package requires any institutions of higher education in Wisconsin offering associate degrees or higher to provide a letter to each student on student debt and cost of attendance each year. The bill also requires the institution to provide students with information on financial literacy within the student’s first semester of enrollment.
Democrats have said that the bills do not do enough and said that state Republicans have harmed the state’s public university system.
"Republicans increased tuition by 11% while gutting colleges and universities,” state Rep. Katrina Shankland, D-Stevens Point, said in a statement. “Under [Walker’s] last three budgets, the UW System has lost a total of $795 million in state aid and technical colleges have lost $203 million in state aid – all thanks to Republican legislators and the governor. 36,000 technical college and UW System students qualified for need-based financial aid in 2015 but did not receive any due to Republicans’ inaction."
