At state university campuses around Wisconsin, department heads are going into budgeting processes contemplating cuts that could be as small as five percent or as large as 20 percent – or more.
The state budget proposal currently calls for $300 million in reduced state aid over the next two years to the UW system.
At UW-Milwaukee, one leading researcher is considering how the cuts might affect the ability of he and his colleagues to continue their work. "UW-Milwaukee is one of the two research doctoral universities within the University of Wisconsin System," says David Petering, University Distinguished Professor in Chemistry and Biochemistry. "Its whole program really is predicated upon having a facility that is intimately and intensively engaged in research."
"So, when one starts talking about $300 million in cuts for the system, that means $40 million in cuts for UWM, if it is done proportionately. That's a lot of money for UWM. UWM has a lean, lean budget already," he says.
"What’s happening is for the past two years, we’ve had flat tuition, which has been a killer, and this is going to be perpetuated. So now you couple the cuts with the inability to actually do anything about them, and inevitably...you’re going to lose quality," Petering says.
He says that even if the universities are given autonomy to raise tuition and more revenue at the end of this budget cycle, the damage could be done. "It takes years, decades, to build a strong university...and this can come apart very easily," Petering says.
Moreover, Petering says he's concerned the budget reductions will hamstring his - and other - departments' efforts to attract talented students. He says they've already faced difficulties in paying graduate teaching assistants competitive stipends. "We cannot compete for the best students to come to here to be part of research projects," he says. "We cannot compete to have the best students be teachers."
He says today's TA stipends are 25% outside of the range of being competitive, and believes that situation would be exacerbated under the current budget scenario.
Still, he says he believes in UWM, and the UW system's, resilience.
"People have a good deal of loyalty, for one reason or another, to being in Milwaukee, to being at the university and to wanting see it succeed. That's why there is so much concern, and there's a good deal of frustration, and actually anger, about what's going on here because basically this is all being done without a plan," Petering says. "Nobody knows what's going to happen with $300 million in cuts."
To students, Petering says, "this is your fight."
