Gov. Scott Walker on Friday proposed freezing the University of Wisconsin System tuition for another two years, adding on to a similar hard cap enacted last year.
That should give him just about enough time to finish his degree…we wouldn’t want him saddled with thousands in student debt going into the 2016 Presidential election cycle!
Walker doubled the price of tuition and now he thinks freezing tuition is good enough?
With (compatriot and no college degree, either) Jim Villa in place at the UW, Walker might not have to fear as much that any or all of his previous college credits will actually be transferable there, or to any other university that might actually accept him as a student.
Listening to Walker speculate on how he might be able to “test out,” on certain subjects to shortcut the work required to get a degree is nothing short of hilarious. Will he be granted special privileges and get to select his personal test monitor and take his exam in the governor’s office at the times he selects for himself with capitol security barring the door.
Maybe Walker will be presented with an honorary degree based on living off the government dime for his entire “career,” when he speaks to a tickets only, captive audience of 67 graduates and their families and friends. Anybody with a camera to record the festivities, and who can get one of the eight tickets allowed for each graduate of the pharmacy school should make some contacts and try to attend. A Friday evening closed event, surprised? NOT.
http://blog.cuw.edu/pressreleases/archives/1445
https://www.cuw.edu/Academics/graduation/tickets.html
The CUW home page link too the governor’s speech was down (error 404) at the time I posted this comment.
You are actually lobbying for tuition increase? This is a “blue blog”? Being “blue” has changed a lot. There was a time when people had some semblance of a belief system and a platform, a set of values. Now it is 100% reactive – you look at what the Republicans are doing or saying, and then do or say the opposite. Even if it means arguing for higher prices, less access to education for lower income kids, compounded on all the factors over the past many years that have made the UW system something that AP students and Doctor and Lawyers kids can aspire to, forget the working class kids. Ten years ago the average parental income among UW students was well into the 90,000 range, who knows what it is now. Most students still graduate with heavy debt, as you know. When I was a kid student activists on the left got all up in arms over the idea of tuition hikes, it was considered something “the man” was doing, something bad, something that priced people out of higher education.
That was then, when Democrats championed greater access to education for the greatest number. Now, it’s just about anti-Walker soundbites, no matter how ridiculous they might make you look. And believe me right now you look pretty ridiculous.
But wait, I almost forgot – “there’s loans and grants” and…”we have to keep the high caliber professors”.
Gosh, I guess you’re still populist liberals after all. You’re right, just jack that tuition every year. It’s for the good of all, and this is not self-defeating contradictory partisan screaming. And thank god someone has tapped into the Walker is a dropout meme. It never gets old, not even after 6 years or so. It stays incredibly witty with each and every repetition.
I am not lobbying for a tuition increase.
But I am pointing out (sarcastically) that once again our governor has created a financial issue in a state organization and then has decided to make it worse with an un-thoughtful unilateral financial cap. Just like his reductions of state revenue sharing to local municipalities and school districts…he piled on with caps and limits on their ability to fund their operations via tax increases. Here he has reduced the shared state revenues received by the UW system and now wants to cap their ability to raise other forms of revenues.
And in both cases the GOP has meddled in local control and the university’s ability to self govern. I don’t think most of the brain trust under the dome even understands the full ramifications of their actions much less any unintended consequences.
I don’t relish tuition increases or anything that would prevent someone from attending college. My personal position on UW tuition is it should be ZERO for full time residents of Wisconsin. That’s one way we grow jobs in the state. That’s one way we keep our local talent in WI to grow the state economy.
As I’ve told any number of politicians over the past year or so…it should be just as affordable today as it was when I attended UW-Milwaukee. I was able to work in a factory at just above minimum wage for the three months every summer and fund my courses for the full school year. I graduated without one dime in debt…if the same relationship between minimum wage and education existed now, we wouldn’t be seeing many of these issues either.
And I don’t see the governor doing anything to ameliorate the student loan/debt issue.
And are you actually suggesting that we don’t need to keep high caliber professors?
BTW: the drop out meme wouldn’t have even crossed my mind if the governor hadn’t gotten into the whole, I am thinking about finishing my education thing this week…particularly with his set a good example ruse.
AND I do think in an election year, we need to keep the governor’s contradictions front and center.
Jane, Jane, Jane!
Are you too becoming reactive? Does not a political debate or forum demand a rebuttal to the oppositions argument? But of course; that’s what it’s all about. Or as said in that old school song “Gaudeamus igitur” loosely(very)translated: “We’re itch’n ta have at it with those dumb SOBs while we can just bout every time they open their big yazoo.” 🙂
Jane Doe, Knock it off with logic and sense wouldya?
It appears Ed forget to click the snark button.
Actually I did…there is a choice for sarcasm in the list of tags.
Great irony in this proposed tuition freeze while also shunting his friend into a newly created $100k+/year administrative post. I guess our guv doesn’t read the Economist, Forbes, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, NYT, WaPo nor any publication examining college costs. Hope he can read his flex exams!
$178K a year and I don’t know if that figure represents other benefits or not.
Let’s not forget another outflow of taxpayer dollars for learning with, “Fast Forward Wisconsin,” being handled by the newly created DWD division, “Office of Skills Assessment,” that is making awards in a competition for matching grants to corporations and businesses for worker training. I wonder which
campaign contributorsbusinesses or corps will win the matching grant monies.http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/wff/newsletter/2013/issue_02.htm
They are working especially hard to define the “skills gap,” (there is a debate as to whether there is one) while ignoring the fact that what we have is a, “jobs gap.”
A bit more on the flex degree program, but I’m still wondering how college credits from 25 years ago can be applied to getting a degree from the UW system today.
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/viewart/20140413/GPG010401/304130333/UW-flex-offerings-don-t-fit-Walker-s-needs-for-degree
School Days, school daze, a Walker historical moment to remember.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/16/scott-walker-1988-marquette-election_n_836508.html
Leading by example.
EXTRA, EXTRA – Read all about it! “Revision update: Walker still unfit 1/4 century later”