The UW System Board of Regents approved System President Kevin Reilly’s recommended 5.5 percent system-wide tuition increase for the 2012-2013 school year in a meeting June 7.
The tuition increase, plus additional student segregated fee increases, will push in-state undergraduate tuition and fees at UW-Madison above $10,000 for the first time.
Undergraduate resident tuition and fees for 2011-2012 were approximately $9,670, according to the Office of the Registrar’s website.
An out-of-state student will pay more than $25,000 in tuition and fees for the upcoming year, according to UW System spokesperson David Giroux.
The recommendation was approved 17-1 with Regent John Drew as the sole member to vote against the increase.
Drew said he could not vote for a tuition increase when there has not been an increase in financial aid.
“I don’t accept the new norm of ever-declining state aid, ever-increasing tuition, ever-increasing student debt, and less and less access to people of modest means to the UW System,” Drew said.
Regent Mark Tyler said he could not support an increase of anything less than 5.5 percent, although he realizes it is “a lot of money.”
“There’s an expectation by our citizens, by our students, that the quality we provide is maintained,” said Tyler, “and I think we must continue to look for fat, but this is an inappropriate time to make further reductions.”
Giroux told The Daily Cardinal June 4 the increase is a direct result of the long-term trend in decreasing state support for Wisconsin’s universities.
“If you adjust for inflation, the university is actually getting less money from the state than it did twenty to thirty years ago,” Giroux said.
According to Giroux, the tuition increases will help cover about one-third of last year’s $300 million decrease in state funding to the UW System.
“I think the budget gap that we’re trying to fill this year is only the latest chapter in this story,” Giroux said.
