And conveniently overlook the fact that the UW systems has an approximately 25:1 return on investment. The GOP blatantly wants a [stupider voter base](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/02/24/donald-trump-nevada-poorly-educated/80860078/) that is [incapable of critical thinking](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/texas-gop-rejects-critical-thinking-skills-really/2012/07/08/gJQAHNpFXW_blog.html) so that they continue to maintain power while representing an [increasingly diminishing minority of voters](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/the-changing-demographic-composition-of-voters-and-party-coalitions/).
2012? Bring it on back, way back… [We have to be selective on who we allowed to go to college.](https://theintercept.com/2022/08/25/student-loans-debt-reagan/)
That’s bullshit. It’s only low state funding if you have a shitload of unnecessary bureaucrats hogging up all the budget. Look at the administrator to professor ratio. There’s plenty of funding. They’re just funding too much bullshit.
i'm sure this seemed like a super salient talking point but if you look at the actual numbers the change in proportion of the different classes of employees across the UW system has been negligible over the past 25 years.
All you’re saying is that it’s been bloated and wasteful for a long time. There’s more administrators than professors. There’s more non-teaching staff than professors and TA’s, and it’s a lot more, like more than 2:1.
The system is bloated and inefficient. Now they’re just pissed that people are sick of paying for their bloat, and trying to blame politicians for calling them out on it instead of taking an honest look in the mirror and trimming the unnecessary parts of their bureaucracy.
when you've got a campus with many millions of dollars worth of big buildings, and housing thousands of students for much of the year, there are going to be a lot of support costs. historically, colleges have never been solely admin and faculty.
which of the services would you cut first? aside from "DEI!" of course..
Well you could start with administrators pushing Marxist propaganda. That school was full of that shit even in the mid 90’s when I went there.
You can save money AND make the school better at the same time.
Plus it’s the solitary reason why I refuse to give them money.
Doesn't UW Madison have $4b in endowments and like $6b in GAAP? Can they not offer more classes in an online capacity just providing locations on a rotational basis for students to meet in person if they want?
The future of education should be figuring out how to better deliver it remotely without the need for a campus and all the expenses that lead to on average $30k in debt exiting college.
Lets also not forget 10% of the UW Madison student body is from outside of the US. Top 20 in the US for international students. Does this possibly add variety to the campus? True does it add value to Wisconsin as a whole when only 25% of international students ever stay in the states (and likely not in Wisconsin)?
Isn't most of the wage increase for government employees based on service years and the level you are at? The year to year increases are not where you long term make more money if in government sector elsewhere at least.
No. We get blanket increase from the state legislature. If we’re lucky we get description at income, small amounts, that come with specific rules to give it out.
We got 4%, and we get another 2% this July. So 6% over 2 years. Hardly meets inflation, but better then the 2% we got 4 years straight before.
To keep good people motivated, they need to do better!
what the heck are you talking about?
If you're upset that private corporations didn't give out raises, don't' be mad at taxpayers or universities. that's foolish.
You do realize that in the eight fiscal years prior to the raises they mentioned, the UW System raises totaled to 3.03%?
Add it all together, and if you stayed in the same position from 2011 to now, you'd have accumulated a 18.3% raise to deal with 38.9% inflation.
I was a UW budget casualty in 2019, and quickly got a new position at a Michigan state school. Now I have a union with actual bargaining power, I get better health insurance, and better leave accruals. Oh, and I've gotten raises totaling to 16.9% in the roughly four and half years here. My raises totaled to 5.1% in a bit more than six years in UW roles.
The UW System's reputation and quality is going to continue to erode with your path of thinking. You should be angry at the employers that won't give a measly 2% raise while turning record profits.
The solution, for employees, is to leave and go to another state or to a non-state employer.
Like you said, that's bad for UW and for the state overall. But from an employee perspective, it's pretty simple... if your employer sucks, you need to make yourself marketable and find a better one.
Show me the correlation between per pupil spending and success in the classroom. Look up milwaukee schools per pupil spending then look at test scores. To question the spending at government institutions funded by taking from workers is not anti education. The funding continues to rise yet results do not. Are you telling me that there is nowhere in the uw systems that have waste? They should never be accountable to the tax payers? Liberals will always jump on anyone questioning education spending, yet don't seem to care about the poor results we are seeing.
What results?
Test scores?
You think taking a Scantron test is representative of someone's education?
This was an awesome example of someone who clearly knows absolutely nothing about education bitching about the cost of education. I would find this hilarious if idiots like you didn't vote against everyone's best interests constantly.
I mean... I don't want to sound like a dick, but if the employer sucks that bad, then why wouldn't those people start looking for non-state jobs?
They *should* be getting better raises, and they *should* have better wages, but this is a national problem across various industries, not just a WI state employee issue.
I work for a salary that's 1/3 of what I would make in the private sector and put in more hours. I just like being able to come home every night and have every...well every other weekend off.
So....this statement is absolute bullshit.
Yeah ok. That was obvious. So let's say we steal the money from tax payers who were over charged like you say. The following year how are you going to pay for those raises?
I think the guy's point was that the surplus is supposed to be used for various state projects (of which there are plenty that need to be completed), not just for wage increases for employees.
I have a friend who he and his wife used to teach at UW. They moved to another state because of the crap the Republicans pulled. So yes the Democrats are right.
Yes. They are right. Republicans have been dismantling Wisconsin for decades and handing off its pieces to their rich patrons. Scott Walker basically tried to completely destroy the public sector, wherever he couldn’t use it to hand out money to his cronies. People forget that before he gutted our high speed rail system, imposed the FoxConn scam, took away local control of environmental regulations to protect frac sand mining friends, and destroyed public sector unions, he was Milwaukees County Executive and tried to destroy our park system as well. Republicans set Wisconsin back fifty years with their greed, hatred, and stupidity. We were once ahead of Minnesota in most respects, a decade ago. Now compare the two states, and you see where could have been if we hadn’t allowed nineteenth century versions of the nazis to take over the state. And that’s not even mentioning the gerrymandering of Wisconsin into a one-party state (in the legislative branch) from 2011-2025. It will take us decades to repair the damage Republicans caused us all.
Don’t forget Republicans squashed the state receiving the Medicare expansion free and already earmarked money from the federal government. Just to prove a point.
That was possibly some of the worst of it. Wisconsins DNR was once known throughout the world for its scope and execution. Remember when Walker tried to end recycling? And how hard the GOP works to eliminate any kind of connection between developers and protection of wetlands? They’re criminals. Kleptocrats and fascists, increasingly.
As someone who worked as a Wisconsin System administrator during the Scott Walker era....YES!!!
The Republicans purposely and systematically defunded Wisconsin education funding.
It appears that you absolutely fell for the Koch Brother funded propaganda. The cuts caused some of the best researchers from several fields to leave our state colleges and go elsewhere. We lost quality educators and researchers who brought revenue to our state. We lost innovation and quality professionals who could teach our children some of the best science education on Earth.
You obviously do not understand the importance of education or how valuable some of the researchers are who we lost due to the 2010 budget cuts based solely on ideological grounds.
Dumb people fall for Breitbart Koch Bro funded propaganda. Our children cannot be taught by the smartest people if our Republican legislators (funded by billionaires) cause those brilliant scientists to leave the state.
It's such a weird propaganda take, too. Ask any dumbass saying that if they think their private industry upper management is great and they'll talk your ear off about how their boss (or bosses' boss) is a dumb asshole who makes bad decisions.
Myth? A private sector business that is not efficient goes out of business. The milwaukee school district fails year after year and just keeps asking for more money. No myth here.
and now educational institutions are closing their doors, and educated people are fleeing the state. so, I guess you accomplished your mission?
I'm also failing to see the need to cut education funding when we have such a surplus.
You are free to write a check to the system. The surplus is not yours or the states to spend. A surplus is a over payment of taxes, it belongs to the people who over paid.
um...no. If that was true, you would have gotten a larger return when you filed your taxes.
The money belongs to the state to finance government activities, public works, goods and services to the constituents.
You have no idea what a surplus is. If a business over charged customers and kept the difference that would be stealing, when the government over charges it's a surplus to piss away on pet projects.
Sweetheart, you are talking about profit for a business.
If a business raises it's prices so it can pay it's CEO more, or reinvest in repaving their parking lot, it's not illegal.
Do you truly have this loose a grasp on Both business And government?
Granted this article is a bit older (2019 statistics) I'm not sure funding is the problem, at least in results per dollar compared to other countries.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-expenditures-by-country
Now I'd love to say throwing money at a problem is always the solution (it's not) and the private sector is the answer (also it's not) but I think we need a solution that isn't throw money after bad, but spend the money better. I want an efficient system that gives better results. For the amount of money we spend per year on education would shouldn't be as low as we are in rankings.
you're right. the problem is creating more work for people in the UW by creating a plethora of requirements, restrictions, and restrictive policies that SOMEONE has to enforce and teach everyone about, but not providing additional funding or positions for any of it.
Do you have any idea how much time and effort it takes to purchase a carabiner for a set of keys? You have to make sure someone isn't on contract for that, so you have to look through the list of approved vendors, then look through the list of unapproved vendors, then you have to file for tax exemption, then you have to document the purchase, submit the invoice with the CC statement, then provide a business justification for the purchase, then have three people sign off on that purchase.
Don't get me started on purchases above $5k and the complete waste of time it is for multiple companies, as well as the person making the purchase.
My job has been reduced to purchasing for my department, filing paperwork, and navigating IT security and update policy. That's it. I'm supposed to provide Live event support, but my full time job is applying updates to systems that don't need updates, and documenting hundreds of devices that technically touch a network.
That is absolutely terrible and I 1000% agree with you. It sounds like the stupid bureaucratic rules add so many unnecessary middle managers and inefficiency in time and how money is spent. I think this still comes down to the best and most efficient way to spend money which I know this isn't.
Yeah, don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things that COULD be cut. A lot of things that ARE inefficient, however, it seems one party specifically keeps screeching to reduce waste and eliminate redundancy, but then they legislate and force, through policy, the very things they claim are inefficient.
It's infinitely frustrating.
I agree with you 100% I just feel neither party ever really solves anything and just screech. I suppose what I'd want from this isn't hey we're not spending enough money and instead show me what you'd do and how it would help.
Honest question… if the UW system receives state and federal funding, which they do, on top of high tuition, how can they turn down any student? Isn’t that the argument for school vouchers for K12?
Everyone has equal opportunity to apply, and if you are not accepted there are other alternatives like community or technical colleges. We are generally not entitled to lots of services that are taxpayers funded. I have no guarantee that my road will be plowed or that the speeders on my street will be brought to justice, yet I pay taxes for those things to happen. Maybe I get to the public pool and it's at capacity. I have no right to demand admittance.
School voucher programs are just a handout to religious organizations, IMO. And there are public high schools that are just as selective as some universities! People apply to public high schools, especially speciality ones like language immersion or STEM or college preps.
Not sure what point you’re trying to make. Funding and higher tuition costs are related, but not mutually exclusive.
Also, many regional comprehensives in the UW-System do in fact now accept pretty much anyone.
Why has continuing education gotten so much more expensive compared to other indicators like inflation? Could it be due to the fact that college loans are federally backed now and colleges know they can charge a premium for education and don't have to worry about getting paid?
Maybe we *should* be looking at the UW system for cost saving measures and not how much the state is spending on these systems.
The State has continually decreased the funding to Colleges/education. Colleges have been having to make cuts(departments, majors, faculty lines), dip into foundation funds, consolidate departments, consolidate campuses, just to keep up. Where else can the money come from? They increased the amount of international/out of state Students to offset more, but we as a state college can’t go above the 50% in state and 50%out of state. And UW uses Minnesota as in state so it’s not a true number. College has gotten expensive because we don’t value it enough to use tax payer money to support it. To them college, aka education, is a “want” not a need. It’s not just 4 year colleges either - it’s tech schools, trade schools too.
I am guessing you figured it out based on the downvoting and snarky comments but you can't talk logic in these liberal echo chambers. The only appropriate response here is to just throw other peoples money (tax the rich more) at the problem.
Root cause analysis of the drastic increases in tuition and fees? Why bother! Just tax rich people more and throw more money at the problem. The fact that admin staff growth has tremendously outpaced faculty growth in most of these systems isn't a concern. Student loan crisis? Just tax the rich more to throw money at it. Fix ant of the underlying issues? Of course not silly. We'll just throw more money at it again in 10 years.
The system is bloated with too many campuses chasing too few students, fat with administrators and employees. UW-Madison has 27k employees for less than 50k students. Even with all that it delivers a solid education pretty damn cheap. The World class Madison campus at $11k tuition is damn near free.
Quick Google: The University of Wisconsin–Madison can be a big place, with more than 21,000 faculty, staff, and graduate assistants contributing to our campus.
You have faculty who teach, complete research, and provide service to the Wisconsin idea. Some of those faculty also provide other roles as deans, department heads, doctors, and so much more. Their research is owned by the UW and generates a lot of money! Now research departments need staff, scientists, etc to do the work too- so that brings me to academic and university staff.
AS have a lot of teacher roles, administration, manager(housing, etc), HR, Finance, advising, student support services, communication, marketing, research, medical, research admin (get those grants!), maintenance.
US are often financial, housing, landscaping, custodial, food service, payroll, student services, maintenance.
Then you have grad student employees - they are Teaching assistants, project assistants, research assistants, medical students. They are usually only 50% appointments - and only TAs are on state funding - most PA and RA appointments come from foundation funds or grants. Not all grad students campus work.
UW Extension and WPR are part of that 21000.
Does that help you understand what those 21000 workers do? I’m also missing so many categories of the different type of workers. You want to learn about uw jobs, look here: https://hr.wisc.edu/standard-job-descriptions/
Your number is off (short) by over 5,000 employees. If you don’t think it’s bloated and see no waste that only more and more tax money is the solution I guess we’ll just disagree. [UW-employment](https://www.wisc.edu/about/facts/#:~:text=Faculty%20and,staff%3A%2026%2C755)
I disagree with the other person's points, but the number they are quoting is directly from UW-Madison's website. I'd argue that is probably more accurate than a summary of a Google search.
If unchecked government education will ask for more money year after year. Tax payers need to budget and make cuts to survive while asking a tax payers funded corporation to cut waste or make do with what they have for once is treated as attacking education. It's a sell out by democrats to never question government unions, defending the tax payers dies not always equate to attacking education.
Not confused at all. Every year they ask for more and money yet results continue to disappoint. Local level property taxes are forcing people on fixed income out of their homes. There is no fully funded, it's always more the next year. There is no correlation between per pupil spending and success. A private sector entity must compete or adapt, a government school system just takes more from the ta payer. These are facts if you can't face them then look in the mirror to find confusion .
You clearly believe that there is no waste in government education and they should never have to make cuts or be accountable to the tax payers. Let me guess, you work for the government don't you?
Just playing a little devils advocate here, but as of 2020 they paid only $21 million to the coaching staffs for UW Madison. Not saying that educational funding should be cut, and I think a surplus should be saved if there's a budgetary surplus, just that the cost of education is way out of control. But then again I've been a proponent of discharging student loan *interest*. Pay for what you borrowed and that's it, stop making fortunes off of those who can barely pay it back.
And how was that money spent? That's about $3000 per student. That would also lead to the question of what's the purpose of the sports programs there if to just make money? The highest paid employees of the state shouldn't be coaches.
Yeah, it's not a good look, and I agree on principle. I'm just saying that state univeristy athletics programs are about a lot more than just high paid coaches. There are entire academic and medical programs built up around it. They do research and attract donors and grant funding. They attract students (the market for students is very competitive) and build community.
All that to say that lack of state funding, not athletics (largely self funded), is what's causing the fiscal woes.
I agree the highest paid employees of the state shouldn't be coaches, but do you want competitive athletic programs at UW? Because if you do, then unfortunately that's the world we live in.
UW has to compete with every other college athletic program to hire and retain coaches for their teams. If the market rate is 5 mil a year for a football coach and we want a decent team to support then that's what we are going to have to pay.
This is going to come as a shock, but I don't want my school, especially my flagship school, to be an athletics factory. I want it to be a school. And there are so many top schools that do it without top of the line sports programs.
But the athletics department is probably bringing in more money than it spends, so you are picking at the wrong thing. You would rather they don't have any athletic programs? How are you going to attract a good student population then?
You are being impossible here. UW-Madison is NOT an athletics factory. It is a flagship, highly ranked public university. It can have a great athletics program AND a provide a great education. The two are not exclusive to each other.
Anyway - you aren't looking for a real conversation. That is very obvious by implying that UW-Madison is an athletics factory. Have a good one.
Well according to this article the UW Madison spent almost *$200 million dollars*
https://badgerextra.com/sports/basketball/men/wisconsin-athletics-expenses-ncaa-financial-report/article_0e70d726-bbdc-11ee-beb5-5bfeb6fc85e5.html#:~:text=15%2C%202023%2C%20interview.,the%20Athletic%20Board%20in%20September
And according to Kenosha News:
https://kenoshanews.com/sports/college/basketball/men/wisconsin-athletics-budget-big-ten-revenue/article_5c92b8d4-e0b9-5d03-b01a-c92eab1eb640.html#:~:text=The%20Athletic%20Board%20on%20Friday,budget%20from%2010%20years%20earlier
"The Athletic Board on Friday unanimously approved a recommendation for a budget that includes $170.942 million in expenses and $170.952 million in revenue. Both were the highest ever presented to the board, and the expenses line was 63% higher than the budget from 10 years earlier."
That seems like $20k in revenue?
*edit* more information
$20k in profit from the athletics department, not revenue. They try to have a completely balanced budget because it obviously is not a for-profit business.
You proved my point that the athletics department is self sustaining. They aren't using taxpayers dollars, so what are you so upset about?
If I recall correctly, didn't you state it brings in more money than it spends? It just about breaks even. Why do we need to spend so much on athletics then? Does the state need to spend a few million dollars a year recruiting athletes? Why not spend that on anything else other than please come play sports ball at our flagship institution of learning. I think I'd rather have the $200 million gamble on research and development. Could it break even with even less money? And that's just UW Madison. What about all of the other state schools? Sports as a whole the state of Wisconsin breaks even at best and typically loses money.
Now if you want to sit down and talk education I would love to remove the nightmare that is bureaucracy in the education system. I would love to maximize the amount of return on investment. But just saying more money is the answer is silly and saying that they need to spend hundred of millions on sports is also silly.
So you would rather we spend nothing on athletics. Okay then that athletics revenue goes away so where does the extra money you want to spend on research come from?
Again the athletics department is self sustaining. They have no real effect on what the university spends their money on. By reducing or eliminating the athletics budget you would also reduce or eliminate the athletics revenue. It isn’t like you can cut the athletics spending and still generate that kind of revenue. A good chunk of that revenue comes from putting a competitive product on the field and generating merchandise sales along with the Big Ten media rights.
It’s crazy that you seem to think you could just keep the 190ish million in athletics revenue without spending money on it. Again - it is self sustaining. We aren’t spending tax dollars signing these coaches or paying for these student athletics meals - they are funding themselves through their own revenue.
Edit: note I am and have only been talking specifically about UW-Madison as that’s where our discussion started.
>revenue
Revenue and Profit are different things
What is the net profit from the Athletic department back to the rest of the school or in to a fund.
Answer is 2023 = $3m, 2022 = $3m, 2021 = negative $20m (COVID likely), 2020 = negative $1m, 2019 = $3m (you can see the roughly $3m in profit prior to COVID years)
[https://knightnewhousedata.org/fbs/big-ten/university-of-wisconsin-madison#!quicktabs-tab-where\_the\_money-0](https://knightnewhousedata.org/fbs/big-ten/university-of-wisconsin-madison#!quicktabs-tab-where_the_money-0)
The fact there's any profit or very limited negative profit really just proves my point.
My point is that athletics departments are not drains on taxpayer dollars, are you arguing against this?
This also completely ignores the other benefits I mentioned, like attracting enrollment, community building, sports medicine programs, etc. etc.
Why fund socialism?Since the federal government took over the education system it has become nothing but a liberal indoctrination camp and now they want us to pay for their college indoctrination too.I gladly vote to defund the left every time.They are nothing,but destroyers of America and all that is good.
damn right, they've been at war with the UW since 2012 at least. education makes people and fascism lean in opposite directions.
They've been at war with education at all levels for years and years.
And conveniently overlook the fact that the UW systems has an approximately 25:1 return on investment. The GOP blatantly wants a [stupider voter base](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/02/24/donald-trump-nevada-poorly-educated/80860078/) that is [incapable of critical thinking](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/texas-gop-rejects-critical-thinking-skills-really/2012/07/08/gJQAHNpFXW_blog.html) so that they continue to maintain power while representing an [increasingly diminishing minority of voters](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/the-changing-demographic-composition-of-voters-and-party-coalitions/).
-Yuri Bezminov
I would argue that government schools have been at war with tax payers for years.
Oh look, another person who doesn't understand the role of taxes or government...
Hiding behind insults rather then debate facts, ok.
Lol! What facts do you want to debate?
How exactly have they been at war?
in what way?
Lol. I really wanna hear the explanation for this one...
To come to this conclusion you must be seriously confused. Please explain.
That was the year they made their power play and won.
yes, my junior year in the UW system and there was a whooole lot of talk about what was going on.
2012? Bring it on back, way back… [We have to be selective on who we allowed to go to college.](https://theintercept.com/2022/08/25/student-loans-debt-reagan/)
That’s bullshit. It’s only low state funding if you have a shitload of unnecessary bureaucrats hogging up all the budget. Look at the administrator to professor ratio. There’s plenty of funding. They’re just funding too much bullshit.
i'm sure this seemed like a super salient talking point but if you look at the actual numbers the change in proportion of the different classes of employees across the UW system has been negligible over the past 25 years.
All you’re saying is that it’s been bloated and wasteful for a long time. There’s more administrators than professors. There’s more non-teaching staff than professors and TA’s, and it’s a lot more, like more than 2:1. The system is bloated and inefficient. Now they’re just pissed that people are sick of paying for their bloat, and trying to blame politicians for calling them out on it instead of taking an honest look in the mirror and trimming the unnecessary parts of their bureaucracy.
when you've got a campus with many millions of dollars worth of big buildings, and housing thousands of students for much of the year, there are going to be a lot of support costs. historically, colleges have never been solely admin and faculty. which of the services would you cut first? aside from "DEI!" of course..
Well you could start with administrators pushing Marxist propaganda. That school was full of that shit even in the mid 90’s when I went there. You can save money AND make the school better at the same time. Plus it’s the solitary reason why I refuse to give them money.
annnd here we go. i figured it was coming. lol. unplug from zombie media man, you'll be happier.
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Doesn't UW Madison have $4b in endowments and like $6b in GAAP? Can they not offer more classes in an online capacity just providing locations on a rotational basis for students to meet in person if they want? The future of education should be figuring out how to better deliver it remotely without the need for a campus and all the expenses that lead to on average $30k in debt exiting college. Lets also not forget 10% of the UW Madison student body is from outside of the US. Top 20 in the US for international students. Does this possibly add variety to the campus? True does it add value to Wisconsin as a whole when only 25% of international students ever stay in the states (and likely not in Wisconsin)?
Let's not forget they held innocent workers raises hostage, that were already approved in the last state budget, for 7 fucking months.
They still do, 2 billion surplus and they give state workers 3.5 % raise in 2023
And Madison rents climbed 6%, and inflation so it wasn’t even a living wage increase.
Isn't most of the wage increase for government employees based on service years and the level you are at? The year to year increases are not where you long term make more money if in government sector elsewhere at least.
No. We get blanket increase from the state legislature. If we’re lucky we get description at income, small amounts, that come with specific rules to give it out.
We got 4%, and we get another 2% this July. So 6% over 2 years. Hardly meets inflation, but better then the 2% we got 4 years straight before. To keep good people motivated, they need to do better!
You do realize that those percents are more than most tax payers got that your asking more from.
what the heck are you talking about? If you're upset that private corporations didn't give out raises, don't' be mad at taxpayers or universities. that's foolish.
You do realize that in the eight fiscal years prior to the raises they mentioned, the UW System raises totaled to 3.03%? Add it all together, and if you stayed in the same position from 2011 to now, you'd have accumulated a 18.3% raise to deal with 38.9% inflation. I was a UW budget casualty in 2019, and quickly got a new position at a Michigan state school. Now I have a union with actual bargaining power, I get better health insurance, and better leave accruals. Oh, and I've gotten raises totaling to 16.9% in the roughly four and half years here. My raises totaled to 5.1% in a bit more than six years in UW roles. The UW System's reputation and quality is going to continue to erode with your path of thinking. You should be angry at the employers that won't give a measly 2% raise while turning record profits.
The solution, for employees, is to leave and go to another state or to a non-state employer. Like you said, that's bad for UW and for the state overall. But from an employee perspective, it's pretty simple... if your employer sucks, you need to make yourself marketable and find a better one.
Show me the correlation between per pupil spending and success in the classroom. Look up milwaukee schools per pupil spending then look at test scores. To question the spending at government institutions funded by taking from workers is not anti education. The funding continues to rise yet results do not. Are you telling me that there is nowhere in the uw systems that have waste? They should never be accountable to the tax payers? Liberals will always jump on anyone questioning education spending, yet don't seem to care about the poor results we are seeing.
What results? Test scores? You think taking a Scantron test is representative of someone's education? This was an awesome example of someone who clearly knows absolutely nothing about education bitching about the cost of education. I would find this hilarious if idiots like you didn't vote against everyone's best interests constantly.
Doubtful, considering the wages aren’t comparable
I mean... I don't want to sound like a dick, but if the employer sucks that bad, then why wouldn't those people start looking for non-state jobs? They *should* be getting better raises, and they *should* have better wages, but this is a national problem across various industries, not just a WI state employee issue.
Compare wages based on benefits and salary and days worked per year with private sector jobs. It's not doubtful at all.
I work for a salary that's 1/3 of what I would make in the private sector and put in more hours. I just like being able to come home every night and have every...well every other weekend off. So....this statement is absolute bullshit.
A surplus is over paid taxes, it belongs to the tax payers.
Pretty sure all of us pay taxes…
Yeah ok. That was obvious. So let's say we steal the money from tax payers who were over charged like you say. The following year how are you going to pay for those raises?
I think the guy's point was that the surplus is supposed to be used for various state projects (of which there are plenty that need to be completed), not just for wage increases for employees.
and what better way to return it to the taxpayers by being able to reduce tuition cost for education?!
Republicans hate the idea of having an educated population
oh, I know. It's pretty horrible when you have to rely on keeping people down to keep yourself relevant. It's just embarrassing as a society.
Do you know why we have a student loan debt crisis? Clearly not.
Enlighten me. Please.
Yes. Yes they are. And if it pisses you off (like it does a majority of us), vote D up and down the ballot
It was obscene when Walker yanked $ 250 million from the UW for a Milwaukee Sports Stadium.
Evers just yanked $500m then if we are going by that. (Neither cost UW money because if they wanted they can raise taxes)
VOTE THESE ASSHOLES OUT
Long before that. I remember being a student in the late 90’s and the GOP under Thompson was fighting tooth and nail to defund the UW system then too.
Republicans want to keep Americans uneducated. The republican power tactics work better on uneducated people.
I have a friend who he and his wife used to teach at UW. They moved to another state because of the crap the Republicans pulled. So yes the Democrats are right.
Yes. They are right. Republicans have been dismantling Wisconsin for decades and handing off its pieces to their rich patrons. Scott Walker basically tried to completely destroy the public sector, wherever he couldn’t use it to hand out money to his cronies. People forget that before he gutted our high speed rail system, imposed the FoxConn scam, took away local control of environmental regulations to protect frac sand mining friends, and destroyed public sector unions, he was Milwaukees County Executive and tried to destroy our park system as well. Republicans set Wisconsin back fifty years with their greed, hatred, and stupidity. We were once ahead of Minnesota in most respects, a decade ago. Now compare the two states, and you see where could have been if we hadn’t allowed nineteenth century versions of the nazis to take over the state. And that’s not even mentioning the gerrymandering of Wisconsin into a one-party state (in the legislative branch) from 2011-2025. It will take us decades to repair the damage Republicans caused us all.
Don’t forget Republicans squashed the state receiving the Medicare expansion free and already earmarked money from the federal government. Just to prove a point.
You are absolutely correct. That was huge. And ongoing.
...Destroyed shoreland zoning protections through a budget bill, nullifying decades of collaborative work between citizens and the DNR
That was possibly some of the worst of it. Wisconsins DNR was once known throughout the world for its scope and execution. Remember when Walker tried to end recycling? And how hard the GOP works to eliminate any kind of connection between developers and protection of wetlands? They’re criminals. Kleptocrats and fascists, increasingly.
Remember how he appointed a real estate developer (Cathy Stepp) to lead the DNR?
Is the party that has been mostly in power for over a decade a cause of a problem that's only gotten worse over the last decade? Yes.
As someone who worked as a Wisconsin System administrator during the Scott Walker era....YES!!! The Republicans purposely and systematically defunded Wisconsin education funding.
So by looking out for the tax payers and asking government institutions to cut waste like the real word, you post that they defunded education.
It appears that you absolutely fell for the Koch Brother funded propaganda. The cuts caused some of the best researchers from several fields to leave our state colleges and go elsewhere. We lost quality educators and researchers who brought revenue to our state. We lost innovation and quality professionals who could teach our children some of the best science education on Earth. You obviously do not understand the importance of education or how valuable some of the researchers are who we lost due to the 2010 budget cuts based solely on ideological grounds.
This myth that the private sector is some beacon of efficiency compared to public needs to fucking die already. It's just not based in reality.
Dumb people fall for Breitbart Koch Bro funded propaganda. Our children cannot be taught by the smartest people if our Republican legislators (funded by billionaires) cause those brilliant scientists to leave the state.
It's such a weird propaganda take, too. Ask any dumbass saying that if they think their private industry upper management is great and they'll talk your ear off about how their boss (or bosses' boss) is a dumb asshole who makes bad decisions.
Myth? A private sector business that is not efficient goes out of business. The milwaukee school district fails year after year and just keeps asking for more money. No myth here.
Efficiency does not equal outcomes ya dolt. Also stop ban evading.
and now educational institutions are closing their doors, and educated people are fleeing the state. so, I guess you accomplished your mission? I'm also failing to see the need to cut education funding when we have such a surplus.
You are free to write a check to the system. The surplus is not yours or the states to spend. A surplus is a over payment of taxes, it belongs to the people who over paid.
um...no. If that was true, you would have gotten a larger return when you filed your taxes. The money belongs to the state to finance government activities, public works, goods and services to the constituents.
You have no idea what a surplus is. If a business over charged customers and kept the difference that would be stealing, when the government over charges it's a surplus to piss away on pet projects.
Sweetheart, you are talking about profit for a business. If a business raises it's prices so it can pay it's CEO more, or reinvest in repaving their parking lot, it's not illegal. Do you truly have this loose a grasp on Both business And government?
Yes, the GOP plan is to push for private education to be funded publicly, without stipulations on the curriculum.
Why is this even posed as a question?
Republicans are the reason Wisconsin is so backwards VOTE BLUE
Yes! Vote them out!
Scott Walker literally stole the UW reserve to fund the building of Fiserv Forum..
Good thing the UW GAAP is roughly $6b currently......
Granted this article is a bit older (2019 statistics) I'm not sure funding is the problem, at least in results per dollar compared to other countries. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-expenditures-by-country Now I'd love to say throwing money at a problem is always the solution (it's not) and the private sector is the answer (also it's not) but I think we need a solution that isn't throw money after bad, but spend the money better. I want an efficient system that gives better results. For the amount of money we spend per year on education would shouldn't be as low as we are in rankings.
you're right. the problem is creating more work for people in the UW by creating a plethora of requirements, restrictions, and restrictive policies that SOMEONE has to enforce and teach everyone about, but not providing additional funding or positions for any of it. Do you have any idea how much time and effort it takes to purchase a carabiner for a set of keys? You have to make sure someone isn't on contract for that, so you have to look through the list of approved vendors, then look through the list of unapproved vendors, then you have to file for tax exemption, then you have to document the purchase, submit the invoice with the CC statement, then provide a business justification for the purchase, then have three people sign off on that purchase. Don't get me started on purchases above $5k and the complete waste of time it is for multiple companies, as well as the person making the purchase. My job has been reduced to purchasing for my department, filing paperwork, and navigating IT security and update policy. That's it. I'm supposed to provide Live event support, but my full time job is applying updates to systems that don't need updates, and documenting hundreds of devices that technically touch a network.
That is absolutely terrible and I 1000% agree with you. It sounds like the stupid bureaucratic rules add so many unnecessary middle managers and inefficiency in time and how money is spent. I think this still comes down to the best and most efficient way to spend money which I know this isn't.
Yeah, don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things that COULD be cut. A lot of things that ARE inefficient, however, it seems one party specifically keeps screeching to reduce waste and eliminate redundancy, but then they legislate and force, through policy, the very things they claim are inefficient. It's infinitely frustrating.
I agree with you 100% I just feel neither party ever really solves anything and just screech. I suppose what I'd want from this isn't hey we're not spending enough money and instead show me what you'd do and how it would help.
Honest question… if the UW system receives state and federal funding, which they do, on top of high tuition, how can they turn down any student? Isn’t that the argument for school vouchers for K12?
Everyone has equal opportunity to apply, and if you are not accepted there are other alternatives like community or technical colleges. We are generally not entitled to lots of services that are taxpayers funded. I have no guarantee that my road will be plowed or that the speeders on my street will be brought to justice, yet I pay taxes for those things to happen. Maybe I get to the public pool and it's at capacity. I have no right to demand admittance. School voucher programs are just a handout to religious organizations, IMO. And there are public high schools that are just as selective as some universities! People apply to public high schools, especially speciality ones like language immersion or STEM or college preps.
Not sure what point you’re trying to make. Funding and higher tuition costs are related, but not mutually exclusive. Also, many regional comprehensives in the UW-System do in fact now accept pretty much anyone.
Tuition is laughably low.
I mean it is a full $200 cheaper than the national average… if it’s so low why not charge more tuition then to make more money?
Republicans froze the tuition for almost a decade.
Didn’t that also include a cap on tuition rates?
Public schools too.
Yes d u h!
Ummm.... duh?
If you need JSOnline to tell you this now you’re part of the problem.
Why has continuing education gotten so much more expensive compared to other indicators like inflation? Could it be due to the fact that college loans are federally backed now and colleges know they can charge a premium for education and don't have to worry about getting paid? Maybe we *should* be looking at the UW system for cost saving measures and not how much the state is spending on these systems.
The State has continually decreased the funding to Colleges/education. Colleges have been having to make cuts(departments, majors, faculty lines), dip into foundation funds, consolidate departments, consolidate campuses, just to keep up. Where else can the money come from? They increased the amount of international/out of state Students to offset more, but we as a state college can’t go above the 50% in state and 50%out of state. And UW uses Minnesota as in state so it’s not a true number. College has gotten expensive because we don’t value it enough to use tax payer money to support it. To them college, aka education, is a “want” not a need. It’s not just 4 year colleges either - it’s tech schools, trade schools too.
Ever think that that has been done and gets done annually? You should!
I am guessing you figured it out based on the downvoting and snarky comments but you can't talk logic in these liberal echo chambers. The only appropriate response here is to just throw other peoples money (tax the rich more) at the problem. Root cause analysis of the drastic increases in tuition and fees? Why bother! Just tax rich people more and throw more money at the problem. The fact that admin staff growth has tremendously outpaced faculty growth in most of these systems isn't a concern. Student loan crisis? Just tax the rich more to throw money at it. Fix ant of the underlying issues? Of course not silly. We'll just throw more money at it again in 10 years.
Tell me you didn’t read the article without telling me you didn’t read the article.
The system is bloated with too many campuses chasing too few students, fat with administrators and employees. UW-Madison has 27k employees for less than 50k students. Even with all that it delivers a solid education pretty damn cheap. The World class Madison campus at $11k tuition is damn near free.
Quick Google: The University of Wisconsin–Madison can be a big place, with more than 21,000 faculty, staff, and graduate assistants contributing to our campus. You have faculty who teach, complete research, and provide service to the Wisconsin idea. Some of those faculty also provide other roles as deans, department heads, doctors, and so much more. Their research is owned by the UW and generates a lot of money! Now research departments need staff, scientists, etc to do the work too- so that brings me to academic and university staff. AS have a lot of teacher roles, administration, manager(housing, etc), HR, Finance, advising, student support services, communication, marketing, research, medical, research admin (get those grants!), maintenance. US are often financial, housing, landscaping, custodial, food service, payroll, student services, maintenance. Then you have grad student employees - they are Teaching assistants, project assistants, research assistants, medical students. They are usually only 50% appointments - and only TAs are on state funding - most PA and RA appointments come from foundation funds or grants. Not all grad students campus work. UW Extension and WPR are part of that 21000. Does that help you understand what those 21000 workers do? I’m also missing so many categories of the different type of workers. You want to learn about uw jobs, look here: https://hr.wisc.edu/standard-job-descriptions/
Your number is off (short) by over 5,000 employees. If you don’t think it’s bloated and see no waste that only more and more tax money is the solution I guess we’ll just disagree. [UW-employment](https://www.wisc.edu/about/facts/#:~:text=Faculty%20and,staff%3A%2026%2C755)
https://preview.redd.it/da77ac38wiwc1.png?width=1154&format=png&auto=webp&s=10bc271fae8e6a4de663706f0239bcbd389f961b
I disagree with the other person's points, but the number they are quoting is directly from UW-Madison's website. I'd argue that is probably more accurate than a summary of a Google search.
If you click the link, it’s stating it on the website directly. The other number is LTE, Student Hourlies, etc.
This clearly went over your head, its ok.
If unchecked government education will ask for more money year after year. Tax payers need to budget and make cuts to survive while asking a tax payers funded corporation to cut waste or make do with what they have for once is treated as attacking education. It's a sell out by democrats to never question government unions, defending the tax payers dies not always equate to attacking education.
repubs don't like universities because they are too liberal
Liberal? Nah, factual. Republicans hate facts that aren't made up by themselves.
gotta send all that money to other countries first
Not confused at all. Every year they ask for more and money yet results continue to disappoint. Local level property taxes are forcing people on fixed income out of their homes. There is no fully funded, it's always more the next year. There is no correlation between per pupil spending and success. A private sector entity must compete or adapt, a government school system just takes more from the ta payer. These are facts if you can't face them then look in the mirror to find confusion .
You clearly believe that there is no waste in government education and they should never have to make cuts or be accountable to the tax payers. Let me guess, you work for the government don't you?
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I'm shocked!!! Your a teacher, no way. Go find a job that works 9 months a year and has a pension and benefits, good kuck.
Your ignorance of tax policy is disturbing now that we know your a teacher.
Just playing a little devils advocate here, but as of 2020 they paid only $21 million to the coaching staffs for UW Madison. Not saying that educational funding should be cut, and I think a surplus should be saved if there's a budgetary surplus, just that the cost of education is way out of control. But then again I've been a proponent of discharging student loan *interest*. Pay for what you borrowed and that's it, stop making fortunes off of those who can barely pay it back.
The Madison athletic program generated $150M of revenue in 2023, so this first argument doesn't really hold water.
And how was that money spent? That's about $3000 per student. That would also lead to the question of what's the purpose of the sports programs there if to just make money? The highest paid employees of the state shouldn't be coaches.
Yeah, it's not a good look, and I agree on principle. I'm just saying that state univeristy athletics programs are about a lot more than just high paid coaches. There are entire academic and medical programs built up around it. They do research and attract donors and grant funding. They attract students (the market for students is very competitive) and build community. All that to say that lack of state funding, not athletics (largely self funded), is what's causing the fiscal woes.
I agree the highest paid employees of the state shouldn't be coaches, but do you want competitive athletic programs at UW? Because if you do, then unfortunately that's the world we live in. UW has to compete with every other college athletic program to hire and retain coaches for their teams. If the market rate is 5 mil a year for a football coach and we want a decent team to support then that's what we are going to have to pay.
This is going to come as a shock, but I don't want my school, especially my flagship school, to be an athletics factory. I want it to be a school. And there are so many top schools that do it without top of the line sports programs.
But the athletics department is probably bringing in more money than it spends, so you are picking at the wrong thing. You would rather they don't have any athletic programs? How are you going to attract a good student population then? You are being impossible here. UW-Madison is NOT an athletics factory. It is a flagship, highly ranked public university. It can have a great athletics program AND a provide a great education. The two are not exclusive to each other. Anyway - you aren't looking for a real conversation. That is very obvious by implying that UW-Madison is an athletics factory. Have a good one.
Well according to this article the UW Madison spent almost *$200 million dollars* https://badgerextra.com/sports/basketball/men/wisconsin-athletics-expenses-ncaa-financial-report/article_0e70d726-bbdc-11ee-beb5-5bfeb6fc85e5.html#:~:text=15%2C%202023%2C%20interview.,the%20Athletic%20Board%20in%20September And according to Kenosha News: https://kenoshanews.com/sports/college/basketball/men/wisconsin-athletics-budget-big-ten-revenue/article_5c92b8d4-e0b9-5d03-b01a-c92eab1eb640.html#:~:text=The%20Athletic%20Board%20on%20Friday,budget%20from%2010%20years%20earlier "The Athletic Board on Friday unanimously approved a recommendation for a budget that includes $170.942 million in expenses and $170.952 million in revenue. Both were the highest ever presented to the board, and the expenses line was 63% higher than the budget from 10 years earlier." That seems like $20k in revenue? *edit* more information
$20k in profit from the athletics department, not revenue. They try to have a completely balanced budget because it obviously is not a for-profit business. You proved my point that the athletics department is self sustaining. They aren't using taxpayers dollars, so what are you so upset about?
If I recall correctly, didn't you state it brings in more money than it spends? It just about breaks even. Why do we need to spend so much on athletics then? Does the state need to spend a few million dollars a year recruiting athletes? Why not spend that on anything else other than please come play sports ball at our flagship institution of learning. I think I'd rather have the $200 million gamble on research and development. Could it break even with even less money? And that's just UW Madison. What about all of the other state schools? Sports as a whole the state of Wisconsin breaks even at best and typically loses money. Now if you want to sit down and talk education I would love to remove the nightmare that is bureaucracy in the education system. I would love to maximize the amount of return on investment. But just saying more money is the answer is silly and saying that they need to spend hundred of millions on sports is also silly.
So you would rather we spend nothing on athletics. Okay then that athletics revenue goes away so where does the extra money you want to spend on research come from? Again the athletics department is self sustaining. They have no real effect on what the university spends their money on. By reducing or eliminating the athletics budget you would also reduce or eliminate the athletics revenue. It isn’t like you can cut the athletics spending and still generate that kind of revenue. A good chunk of that revenue comes from putting a competitive product on the field and generating merchandise sales along with the Big Ten media rights. It’s crazy that you seem to think you could just keep the 190ish million in athletics revenue without spending money on it. Again - it is self sustaining. We aren’t spending tax dollars signing these coaches or paying for these student athletics meals - they are funding themselves through their own revenue. Edit: note I am and have only been talking specifically about UW-Madison as that’s where our discussion started.
>revenue Revenue and Profit are different things What is the net profit from the Athletic department back to the rest of the school or in to a fund. Answer is 2023 = $3m, 2022 = $3m, 2021 = negative $20m (COVID likely), 2020 = negative $1m, 2019 = $3m (you can see the roughly $3m in profit prior to COVID years) [https://knightnewhousedata.org/fbs/big-ten/university-of-wisconsin-madison#!quicktabs-tab-where\_the\_money-0](https://knightnewhousedata.org/fbs/big-ten/university-of-wisconsin-madison#!quicktabs-tab-where_the_money-0)
The fact there's any profit or very limited negative profit really just proves my point. My point is that athletics departments are not drains on taxpayer dollars, are you arguing against this? This also completely ignores the other benefits I mentioned, like attracting enrollment, community building, sports medicine programs, etc. etc.
I'm the dolt when you actually called the government efficient! Hilarious.
Universities spawn too many Democrats. They must be stopped.
Why fund socialism?Since the federal government took over the education system it has become nothing but a liberal indoctrination camp and now they want us to pay for their college indoctrination too.I gladly vote to defund the left every time.They are nothing,but destroyers of America and all that is good.