With the news that Chancellor John Wiley will step down next September it seems the future of UW-Madison is at a crossroads. In a presentation given to the UW System Board of Regents last Friday, Provost Patrick Farrell said, while UW-Madison has been an extremely successful university, that success is not guaranteed to continue. Farrell is right, but his solution - to increase tuition - is dead wrong.
During his presentation, Farrell compared UW-Madison to top private institutions like Harvard, Yale and Stanford, specifically mentioning research and the large endowments each of these universities have.
His proposal to increase tuition would seek to close this gap in research funding. However, considering UW-Madison is the second-ranked research institution in the country, according to the National Science Foundation, Farrell's idea to increase tuition for this purpose is perplexing.
According to U.S. News & World Report's 2008 ranking of America's best colleges, those three schools all fall in the top four. UW-Madison is tied for 38th.
What Farrell needs to remember is that UW-Madison is a public university and there is no reason to compare it to the Ivy League. When it comes to public universities, UW-Madison is tied for eighth, trailing only Michigan in the Big Ten, which is tied for third.
Since UW-Madison is one of the top public universities in the country despite its low tuition, there is no need for an increase, especially when the money would be spent on something at which we already excel.
Increasing tuition just to move from
number two to number one on this list seems rather stupid, and I'm sure most students would agree there are more pressing needs the university must address first.
Over the past few years, UW-Madison has been bleeding faculty due to low salaries. Last year, 26 professors left the university. In 2005-'06, faculty retention was an abysmal 57 percent, down from 75 percent seven years earlier. UW-Madison's median salary for full professors is last among its peer institutions, at approximately $14,000 less per year.
A lot of the blame falls on the state Legislature, which now provides just 19 percent of the university's budget, according to Wiley. Ten years ago it was 27 percent and 30 years ago it was 43 percent. If these decreases continue, UW-Madison will move closer to becoming a private university, and then we're really in trouble.
With UW-Madison's continued success in question, it makes sense to keep the focus on what has worked for the past 160 years. Instead of increasing tuition for research purposes, UW-Madison needs to continue to attract the best students with low tuition and superb faculty. So far, we're halfway there.
This year, the average freshman admitted to UW-Madison was ranked in the 86th to 96th percentile in his or her class, had a GPA between 3.5 and 3.9 and an average ACT score of 26 to 30. According to the Admissions Office, these numbers have been steadily increasing over the past five to 10 years.
As the university becomes more selective, we're going to need better professors to teach these students, and to do that, we need more state funds.
The state Assembly is only three seats away from turning over to the Democrats. It comes as no surprise the decrease in state support came from a Republican-controlled Legislature (thank you Steve Nass), so none of this will matter if the Democrats win in November.
If that somehow doesn't happen, then we can examine Farrell's plan to increase tuition as a last resort, but only if it goes toward hiring better faculty.
So let's stop this comparison to the Ivy League and focus on what works. With a smarter student body and funds to finally attract the best faculty, UW-Madison should continue its success and maintain its spot as one of the nation's top public universities and research institutions. And that's a guarantee.
Erik Opsal is a senior majoring in journalism and political science. Please send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
