Republicans take skeptical view of UW system’s ‘make-or-break’ funding request

At an April 1 hearing, in a sign of what the most contentious issues will be in this year’s state budget, the Republican-controlled budget committee only heard from two state agencies: Corrections and the Universities of Wisconsin system.

UW system President Jay Rothman told lawmakers he agreed with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ assessment that the 2025-27 biennial state budget is a “make it or break it” budget year for the public university system.

Evers’ budget request for the Universities of Wisconsin matched the agency’s ask of $856 million in additional funding over two years, which would be one of the largest increases in the university system’s history. Evers told reporters this funding, in addition to $1.6 billion proposed for capital projects, is essential even without the Trump administration’s threats to cut university funding.

Republican lawmakers on the Joint Finance Committee asked Rothman to justify “administrative bloat” across the system’s 13 universities, as well as the sizable budget ask. Rothman said while the request is large, Wisconsin currently ranks 43rd out of 50 in state spending on public universities. Evers’ budget would add 214 state-funded positions to UW campuses. Rothman said that excluding UW-Madison, the universities have lost over 1,000 positions since 2019.

The share of the UW system budget that comes from state funds has decreased by about 15 percentage points in the last two decades, from 33% to 18%.

“If we get the budget funded, we will not have to raise tuition,” Rothman told the JFC. “If we don’t get funded at an adequate level, that’s one of the levers we have. We keep our branch campuses open, that’s another lever we have that I don’t want to have to use.”

But amid declining birth rates and enrollment in public schools across the state, Republican lawmakers questioned whether the $856 million ask is reasonable considering university enrollments may soon drop significantly. Five of the 13 campuses had enrollments shrink last year.

“You cannot cut your way to success,” Rothman told the committee. “You need to invest.”

State funding for UW-Madison — the state’s flagship university — in inflation-adjusted dollars was $644 million in 1974. Since then, it has declined by $93 million in inflation-adjusted dollars, according to the university’s 2023-24 budget report. Figures aren’t available system-wide.

Republican Rep. Mark Born, co-chair of the committee, asked Rothman why the request called for 13 new staff positions — one on each campus — to support students who have aged out of the foster care system. He cited a UW system report that found there were 420 students in that program across nine of the campuses. He questioned why a position would need to be created at a school like UW-Platteville, which served nine of those students last year. The report also shows that the program didn’t serve all 570 students who qualify, including 23 on that campus.

“I think this is a shining example of the governor’s desire to grow government and your desire to grow your system, and it’s not focused on the reality of how you invest in this stuff,” Born told Rothman.

Rothman said the intent behind the positions is to expand the number of foster care students who could be served.

GOP lawmakers critique admissions process

Republican lawmakers have criticized enrollment and admissions at the state’s flagship university in recent years, citing constituents who say their high-achieving children have been rejected from attending UW-Madison. They have also raised concerns that the university is denying admission to in-state students in favor of out-of-state or international students.

Unlike some of the smaller Wisconsin campuses, UW-Madison has maintained high enrollment numbers likely due to its ability to attract out-of-state and international students.

If the university significantly increased its enrollment of in-state students from an already declining pool of applicants, enrollment at other UW system schools could be negatively affected, UW-Madison Vice Provost for Enrollment Management Derek Kindle told WPR.

During the April 1 hearing, Sen. Rob Stafsholt, R-New Richmond, said he adamantly believes in retaining Wisconsin-based students in the university system. He asked Rothman why one of his young constituents — who has a 4.3 GPA, 32 ACT score and a father who is a military veteran — was rejected from UW-Madison.

“How are we not serving our own kids, as they graduate, by admitting them to our universities before we spend taxpayer dollars and increase taxpayer dollars to attract people from other parts of the world?” Stafsholt asked.

Rothman said he didn’t have the specifics of that student’s case, but pointed to a bill signed into law last year that allows graduating high school students who rank in the top 10% of their high school’s graduating class to gain admission to any UW system school and guarantees admission to UW-Madison for those in the top 5% of their class. The bill takes effect for college admissions starting next fall.

In fall 2024, UW-Madison admitted around 59.3% of in-state applicants, down from an average of 66.8% over the previous nine years. The out-of-state U.S. student admission rate was 46.5%, and the international student admission rate was 33.3%, compared to a previous nine-year average of 52.7% and 38.6% respectively.

The questioning was similar to a national talking point about high-achieving students being rejected from universities, which some Republicans have attributed to diversity, equity and inclusion practices. Right-wing activists like Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, have questioned whether the government should be funding higher education.

On the same day as the hearing, Kirk took to social media to share an example of a high-achieving student similar to the one Stafsholt spoke of.

“Why are we giving hundreds of billions of dollars to universities so stupid they won’t offer this kid an admission because of his skin color (and let’s be honest, that’s why he was rejected everywhere)?” Kirk wrote on X. “Defund the college scam.”

Slashes to federal funding loom over UW-Madison

Last month, the federal Department of Education notified UW-Madison that it was one of 60 universities across the country under investigation by the Office for Civil Rights. The letter warned that the university could lose federal funding if it failed to protect its Jewish students.

The move was part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on antisemitism on college campuses, which has involved detaining, deporting and terminating the visas of students with ties to the national pro-Palestinian protests last spring.

UW-Madison is also one of 45 universities being investigated for alleged racial discrimination related to its diversity, equity and inclusion practices. The Trump administration has made sweeping threats to pull federal funding from colleges that continue to consider race and diversity in their policies and programs.

But how much funding is at stake here?

According to the Associated Press, out of 50 public universities under OCR investigation, UW-Madison is among the top five that received the most federal revenue in 2022-23. The university collected more than $827 million in federal funds that year, which was just over 20% of its total revenue.

This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.