The president of the UW System and the president of the UW Board of Regents said a $25 million cut would drastically affect all 160,000 UW-Madison students, in response to Gov. Jim Doyle's most recent budget proposal.
With the Wisconsin state budget still at an impasse, Doyle announced a revised budget Wednesday that would cut the UW System by $25 million. Both houses of the state Legislature will vote on the proposal Monday.
According to Mark Bradley, president of the UW System Board of Regents, the state budget has been continuously reduced over the last number of years to the bare bone,"" and will be an ""extraordinary challenge"" to school administrations, and students.
If Doyle's budget is passed, Bradley said one option is to have a surcharge so the university can afford to offer the same number of classes. However, he added this would be detrimental to middle and lower income families who would not be able to pay.
Other options would be to tell students it would take longer to graduate because of the lack of money to pay faculty, or not to admit as many new students for the 2008 fall semester, according to Bradley.
Doyle originally proposed a $50 million decrease on Tuesday, which was still less than the $60 million cuts proposed by the Assembly Republicans, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
""The revised budget is certainly not perfect, but in comparison, no budget and no action will be a complete and utter train wreck for the university in every conceivable way,"" said UW System spokesperson David Giroux.
Giroux added the proposed budget would have negative effects on students because of reduced support for academic programs and limiting the number of classes available.
The lack of money would also stall the launching of the Growth Agenda, a series of requests from different regions in the state regarding higher education, according to Giroux.
The Growth Agenda, Bradley said, would cost $21.5 million to be spread among 160,000 students at UW System schools, and is designed to increase the percentage of Wisconsin residents that have baccalaureate degrees.
According to Mike Mikalsen, spokesperson for state Rep. Stephen Nass, R-Whitewater, the likelihood of Doyle's budget passing is slim because it increases taxes by $1 billion, which the Assembly is unwilling to accept.
""Democrats '¦ have drawn a line in the sand saying they will not accept anything less than a billion dollars in tax increase,"" Mikalsen said.
