The projected $5.4 billion state budget deficit will likely lead to a tuition increase at UW System schools in the near future, but chances are next semester's tuition will not be raised.
According to state Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, there should be no changes in next semester's tuition unless Gov. Jim Doyle enacts emergency economic procedures.""
The inevitable increase in tuition for the 2009-'10 academic year will be decided by the 2009-'11 state budget and announced in the spring.
In 1997, undergrads at UW System schools paid 35.8 percent of the instructional costs. Students now pay 56 percent, according to the UW System Fact Book for 2007-'08.
State appropriated resources cover slightly more than 24 percent of the UW System budget, which is down from nearly 34 percent in 1997, according to the Fact Book.
""Tuition at the 13 two-year UW colleges has remained frozen for two consecutive years, [but] tuition almost always increases on an annual basis,"" UW System spokesperson David Giroux said.
According to Giroux, tuition will increase if state funding fails to keep up with operational costs.
The talk of boosting tuition costs for students has led university officials and lawmakers to start proposing ways to minimize those increases.
Black said he aims to keep tuition increases to a minimum and to increase student financial aid to ""assist students who would otherwise be priced out of an education.""
According to Mike Mikalsen, research assistant for state Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, spending cuts in the UW System do not have to be in areas of academic instruction, but in areas of administration.
In some cases, the number of people employed in administration jobs is increasing at a faster rate than the instructional side, Mikalsen said.
""The public, Legislature and students have to once and for all send a clear signal that the UW System and the Board of Regents need to make cuts and find ways to reduce expenditures,"" Mikalsen said.
The UW System plans to decrease faculty pay raises from 5.2 to 2.5 percent, and is considering implementing a three-year advanced degree program, a process that would save students and the university money, according to Mikalsen.
""The silver lining to these dark clouds [of the economic crisis] is that the UW System can reorganize itself into a modern educational system, [replacing] the current system modeled on the 1973 enactment of the UW System,"" he said.
