The UW Board of Regents meetings

When the UW Board of Regents meets this Thursday and Friday at the UW-Milwaukee Union, most of the meetings will consist of guest speakers, like the Mayor of Milwaukee, or authorizing things like a B.A. in Design Arts at UW-Green Bay. There are, however, a couple of noteworthy items on the agenda.

The most high profile one is the approval of Biddy Martin as chancellor.

Another item that I have already talked extensively about, that will affect UW-Madison, is differential tuition for the College of Engineering.

One decision that will affect every student in a very direct way will be the setting of tuition rates for next year

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents is scheduled to approve an annual operating budget and set tuition rates for the 2008-09 academic year at this week’s meeting in Milwaukee. The recommended tuition increases mirror those approved for the current academic year.

Another proposal being discussed is a resolution on tuition benefits for veterans.

University of Wisconsin System leaders want lawmakers to pay the full cost of tuition benefits they’ve given to veterans.

Wisconsin veterans can attend the UW System and Wisconsin Technical College System for free under a 2006 law.

The benefits are popular, but lawmakers and Gov. Jim Doyle have not given the schools enough tax money to cover them.

A resolution that could be voted on this week by the UW System Board of Regents says that’s creating “a significant and increasing fiscal burden on UW institutions.”

The resolution would call for full funding for the benefits and a change in the law to require veterans to use their federal benefits before they would be eligible for the state program.

At first glance the lack of funding of tuition benefits for veterans appears to be just another case of the state not sufficiently providing financial support for the UW. However, some deeper reading into the first article on the tuition increase, reveals exactly how the state legislature’s failings affect students:

The 5.5 percent tuition increase will fund many of the university’s ongoing financial and operational commitments. Of the total 5.5 percent proposed increase, 3 percent will go toward the state-mandated veterans’ tuition remissions program, and 1.6 percent will fund Growth Agenda Initiatives, including those designed to increase enrollments and enhance graduation rates. Other contributing factors include increased costs for employee salaries and health insurance benefits (0.5 percent), student technology fees (0.2 percent) and utilities for the UW System’s 59 million square feet of facilities (0.2 percent).

Now this is not just about how the quality of education took a hit because we lost a couple of political science professors as a result of the inferior salaries we offered them. Lack of state support is now directly costing students financially, to the tune of $190 a year.