UW-Madison’s participation in gaining state funding for itself and the UW System was debated Wednesday at a higher education forum at Grainger Hall.

The Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education hosted the forum regarding the history of state funding for higher education over the last 20 years.

According to David Weerts, assistant professor of higher education at Florida Atlantic University, even though the relative levels of state funding for higher education have decreased over the last 20 years, the actual amount of money given to higher education has increased.

“I think everyone wants me to come in here and say we’re at the bottom, but that’s not really true,” Weerts said, in regards to state funding allocated to UW-Madison.

Noel Radomski, director of WISCAPE, said even though Wisconsin colleges have received more state funding for higher education than other states’ colleges in the past, the UW System still has the responsibility to prove to the state legislators why higher education should be made a priority.

“How do we want to show the public, including the Legislature, how effective we are,” he said.

According to Radomski, it would be in the university’s best interests to “be less elitist, less arrogant,” and start going to different communities in Wisconsin to figure out what each community wants and needs.

“I think we need to get out of our comfort zone,” he said, “We need to, to some degree, go around the Legislature, because they don’t care right now.” This is why, according to Radomski, the university needs to turn to Wisconsin residents to get things done.

Radomski said that within the last two decades, despite the amount of factual information given to the Legislature, they have failed to act on the issue of higher education.

W. Lee Hansen, UW-Madison professor emeritus of economics, said further research should be conducted regarding state funding of higher education. “[With] competition from all the other organizations, we can’t make a strong case,” Hansen said, “We need to be more forceful.”

Radomski said K-12 funding and health care are demographically the largest issues in Wisconsin right now, which is why these areas have typically received the most state funding.

“The state government system right now is broken––they can’t even pass a budget,” Radomski said. “Higher education is perceived to be a luxury.”