Issue date: 3/12/09 Section: Editorial/Opinion

The biggest threat facing students today is the mismanagement of the State of Wisconsin and University of Wisconsin System budgets. Because of state legislators' and system administrators' negligence, the University System is facing a massive cut in state funding and in the services offered to students. Students, themselves, are facing significant increases in tuition, a number at this point unknown.

Taking advantage of students and tuition has become a sport in the state government. In 2003, Gov. Jim Doyle used a $250 million cut of the UW System to help shore up his irresponsible budget. That led to the largest increase in tuition ever for students. Since then we have seen tuition rise steadily at 5.5 percent each year with $60 to $100 million cuts in the UW System budget each biennium. And that was just the beginning!

To deal with the next increase in tuition, they are going to tell you that if your parents make less than $60,000 a year, you will not have to pay for the increase. What they leave out is that they want to raid the savings in student fee/segregated fee accounts we have saved for building projects and other rainy days to make up the difference. This is questionable at best because student fees are not allowed, according to Board of Regents policy, to go towards financial aid. Also, they are required to seek input from students on what to do with student fees and that does not seem to be happening either. In any case, money you were counting on to be there will not be, requiring significant raises in fees in the future.

This kind of practice is what got the state in the financial woes it has found itself in this year. Whether it is using the tobacco settlement money, raiding the transportation or medical malpractice funds, or just simply using accounting tricks to hide the structural deficits in the state budget, raiding segregated and student fees to fill in financial aid is no different. Dumping the budget problems of this state on students can no longer be an option!

The way to effect change in this anti-education climate is to be vocal and on the radar screens of legislators and administrators. In 2007, the state budget was passed and signed more than three months after the required deadline of July 1.

Your former United Council Delegation Leader, Elizabeth Schinke, and I decided that enough was enough and that we were going to hold a rally on the State Capitol steps in support of a responsible and student-friendly budget. We organized all of the other UW System schools and prepared for upwards of 1,000 students showing up on the Capitol steps.

Well, it is no coincidence that the State Legislature passed the budget a mere 18 hours before our rally. They knew we were coming and they did not want to deal with the press storm of angry students. How do I know it was because of us? Because legislators were calling us and United Council confirming that we were going to hold the rally. They were afraid! While the budget they passed was not ideal, it was infinitely better than the piece of garbage the State Assembly originally proposed.

The bottom line is that is the way to get something done and students' voices heard. You need Student Senate and United Council actively pursuing the student agenda that you elected them to support. There are a small handful of individuals in Student Senate ready and willing to put up a fight and right now it is not happening. Just because this is the era of "hope" and "change" does not mean this is the era for students to roll over and die. Just because Democrats are in control of the State Government does not mean that open season on students is closed.

What you need to argue for is a responsible tuition policy and responsible management of state funds. Increasing tuition and decreasing services and the quality of education will bankrupt our future.

You need your Student Senate and United Council representatives organizing your voice through writing and calling campaigns to legislators and administrators, letters to the editor in newspapers all over the state, lobby visits, rallies, etc. There is no end to what you can do.

Hold their feet to the fire and make them work for you. Right now, it is not enough.

French is an alumnus, class of 2008, former student body president, and guest columnist for The Spectator.

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