Spring Break
Tuition hike proposed
Increased state aid and tuition will help fix problems, Mash says
Alison Pelleymounter
Issue date: 9/9/04 Section: Campus News
After approving a 17 percent tuition increase for the 2002-04 biennium, the UW System Board of Regents requested a 4.3 percent increase for 2005-07 in August.
The proposed hike was coupled with a 7.2 percent increase in state support.
According to the Board's budget request, goals of the biennium include increasing access for low and moderate-income students, increasing retention and graduation rates, expanding student-faculty contact and improving technology on the System's 26 campuses.
The proposal states that, over the past two years, $250 million has been cut from state support, the effects of which are being felt system-wide.
Chancellor Donald Mash said one problem the budget proposal seeks to amend is the decrease in enrollment of lower-income students, which has been a trend throughout the System for the past few years.
"The problem (of decreasing lower-income enrollment) is not because tuition is being raised," Mash said. "It's that we've raised tuition so fast without complimentary state aid."
The request will hold tuition at its current level for those students whose families earn less than $46,000 per year.
Board of Regents president Toby Marcovich said the most beneficial factor of the new budget proposal is the planned restoration of 300 teaching positions in the UW System.
UW-Eau Claire has lost 32 positions this biennium, Mash said.
He said that the tuition and state support increases will be used to restore the positions at UW-Eau Claire.
Junior Jesse Brinkmann pays his own tuition with help from financial aid through work-study. He said that the tuition increase might be necessary to continue the quality of education he has received at the university.
"I don't see them being able to increase tuition every other year," Brinkmann said. "I don't think it's fair to us students who have to pay for our own school."
Mash said that the level of tuition raises should be more reasonable as state support increases.
"We really need a public policy discussion on the relationship of state support and the contribution that students pay."
The proposed hike was coupled with a 7.2 percent increase in state support.
According to the Board's budget request, goals of the biennium include increasing access for low and moderate-income students, increasing retention and graduation rates, expanding student-faculty contact and improving technology on the System's 26 campuses.
The proposal states that, over the past two years, $250 million has been cut from state support, the effects of which are being felt system-wide.
Chancellor Donald Mash said one problem the budget proposal seeks to amend is the decrease in enrollment of lower-income students, which has been a trend throughout the System for the past few years.
"The problem (of decreasing lower-income enrollment) is not because tuition is being raised," Mash said. "It's that we've raised tuition so fast without complimentary state aid."
The request will hold tuition at its current level for those students whose families earn less than $46,000 per year.
Board of Regents president Toby Marcovich said the most beneficial factor of the new budget proposal is the planned restoration of 300 teaching positions in the UW System.
UW-Eau Claire has lost 32 positions this biennium, Mash said.
He said that the tuition and state support increases will be used to restore the positions at UW-Eau Claire.
Junior Jesse Brinkmann pays his own tuition with help from financial aid through work-study. He said that the tuition increase might be necessary to continue the quality of education he has received at the university.
"I don't see them being able to increase tuition every other year," Brinkmann said. "I don't think it's fair to us students who have to pay for our own school."
Mash said that the level of tuition raises should be more reasonable as state support increases.
"We really need a public policy discussion on the relationship of state support and the contribution that students pay."