After a year-long debate between UW system officials and the state government, Gov. Jim Doyle approved a state budget, which caused a $250 million reduction in state funding for the UW System.
Due to the UW System's budget cut, UW officials are hoping to regain $150 million of its loss by raising tuition at all two- and four-year colleges and universities. UW-Madison will be seeing the largest tuition hike in the state this year, up approximately 16 percent from last year, a $700 per year increase.
The remaining $100 million will cause cuts to the system in many areas. When the Students are paying more for education while having less classes to choose from and larger class sizes. UW-Madison alone will eliminate 300 courses, 90 administration and 60 faculty positions.
Only 6 percent of UW-Madison's budget this year will go to administration costs which according to UW System President Katherine Lyall, means students will face delays in seeing advisors, faculty and staff in the coming year.
The College of Letters and Science, the largest school on the UW-Madison campus, will have to take a hefty $4.5 million cut to their program. Many popular L&S introductory courses have enrolled more than 500 students in each class. L&S is currently dealing with budget cuts by leaving faculty and staff positions unfilled for the coming year.
Funding has already been denied for upper-level electives that typically have a smaller class size, such as a class that focuses on the writings of James Joyce in the English department.
Other campuses are looking at consolidating expensive majors and programs, ones that deal with lab equipment, to one or two campuses. For example, UW-Platteville will specialize in engineering while UW-La Crosse and Milwaukee campuses will be the home for popular health majors.
