UW System President Katharine Lyall, several UW System chancellors and financial advisors had a conference call Monday to discuss the current budget dilemmas facing the different Wisconsin campuses.
The call was part of an effort to make sense of the situation and discuss ways to improve the quality of service to students in light of an unclear state budget, according to Erik Christianson, a UW System spokesperson.
\Currently, Wisconsin invests $100 less per student than the national average. We think that's a really important figure and that the proposed [state budget] cuts would only further reduce this disparity,"" he said, explaining the UW System Board of Regents' logic for Friday's announcement of a system-wide enrollment freeze.
Christianson said he was unwilling to guess when or if the UW System would reopen admissions to prospective students, but critics of the freeze have called the regents' action a scare tactic to increase funding and the tuition cap.
However, UW budget woes are not unique, according to a November 2001 survey which found that economic shortfalls at the state level have caused public universities to increase 2002-'03 tuition at rates not seen since 1993.
Furthermore, the College Board survey found that both private and public institutions increased tuition levels beyond the 2.6 percent rate of inflation. The average public university tuition rate increased about 7.7 percent, exceeding the private sector's level, an average of 5.5 percent, for the first time since 1996.
Ohio State University Spokesperson Elizabeth Conlisk said the difficulties of the deficits facing state legislatures shows constituents how much value state representatives have for particular agencies.
""I know that in Ohio, we just had the public universities receive 54 percent of a state budget cut last fall when we comprise only 12 to 13 percent of the state budget,"" she said. ""There are some states that don't value higher [education] as highly as others.""
The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that the nation's economic state has led to double-digit tuition increases at public universities in Illinois, Iowa and South Carolina. Illinois' proposed 10 percent increase for 2002-'03, which follows a 37 percent jump over two years, would bring tuition levels at Urbana-Champaign to nearly twice the rate that it was at 10 years ago.
Conlisk added that despite the shortfalls facing the university, Ohio State's price tag remains competitive with their in-state rivals'Miami University in Oxford, Ohio University in Athens and University of Cincinnati.
""Ohio State's tuition is already extremely low compared with the schools in Ohio with whom we compete,"" she said. ""We are still an incredible bargain compared to the three other schools with whom we compete for the most gifted students.\
