0 Student Responds to UW System Board of Regents Meeting

This week is also another meeting of the UW System Board of Regents. Consistent with yesterday's blog, here I am sharing some thoughts from one of my students who watched the February 9 meeting of that Board.  This was the meeting at which members discussed rising costs, cost containment, and the potential for cutting enrollment throughout UW System.

"The debate following the panel of chancellors reflected the three corners of the Iron Triangle: access, funding, and quality. Surprisingly, most of the concerns seemed to revolve around issues of quality, and to some extent access, not around funding concerns...When pressed on the issue, [President Kevin] Reilly was forced to admit that he did not know when or if quality decline would result in reduced enrollment...
Chancellors Sorenson and Wachter noted students' reluctance to leave universities for the workforce. While not using the same intense and accusatory rhetoric of a Jackson Toby, they did claim that students lack efficiency in pursuing their education. At this point [Vice-President] Mark Nook interjected to provide an anecdote about how his daughter ... had managed to graduate in 4 years...This reflected a misguided assumption that his daughter's experience is typical, rather than the reality that 3/4 of today's college students face serious constraints and pressures that could impede their academic progress. 
In one particularly poignant moment, Regent Jose Vasquez questioned how the System would provide for students of color and those with disabilities.  He was the only member to directly address issues of access for underserved populations. He noted that these students cost more than what he called 'ideal' and 'easy' students, and wondered how they'd be impacted by cost-cutting measures.  His remarks highlighted the the non-financial values of public higher education and provided a moment to undercut finance as the "privileged language of reality." Sadly, none of the board members or chancellors responded to his concern."

0 Students Respond to the UW Taskforce

Today the Wisconsin Legislature's "Special Task Force on UW Restructuring and Operational Flexibilities" meets again in Madison.  In honor of that, I want to bring you some student perspectives on one of the prior task force meetings--the one that took place on February 8, and included presentations from the chancellors of UW-Madison and Milwaukee. I'm doing this because student voices are notably absent from these meetings-- students have not been given a chance to present (they will, for the first time, on May 9) and they do not serve on the task force.  A few have written letters or spoken publicly on the topic, but most have not.

Recently, students in my Introduction to Debates in Higher Education Policy course (EPS 518) were asked to view a legislative or regents hearing or meeting of their choosing and write a response paper.  Below, I provide some representative examples of their responses -- these are deliberately provided without attribution to the student (all are undergraduates) and are posted with their specific permission.  My intention is to simply allow the voices of students to emerge, as I think their comments and questions are critical to the discussion. If other students wish to share their considered opinions of hearings, please do send me your memos, and I'm happy to post thoughtful excerpts.

Student 1: "..The nature of the meeting itself...was self-congratulatory and generally insufficient in data. The meeting focused on individual knowledge and individual power, that is they spoke of their personal bailiwicks, which, while it makes sense for a panel of experts, was insufficient...though the panel brought up several reforms, these reforms were often self-serving, under-supported by data, and/or uncertain in their impact." 


Student 2: [Flexibilities were a primary topic of discussion at the hearing and yet] "there was an utter lack of understanding about what was being discussed...Despite the apparent knowledge gap about what flexibilities were, they were the main focus of discussion and seemed to be the only thing anyone believed could save the UW System money...What is perplexing about the deregulation rhetoric is that, according to Gary Rhoades, this behavior is...a trickle-down model of funding.  In exchange for deregulation and flexibilities, institutions receive less state support. This ends up privileging the elite institutions while creating problems for local institutions. However, it was chancellors of schools like UW-Oshkosh and Platteville who were calling for this deregulation..I cannot help but wonder why the chancellors of these schools would call for deregulation when it would mean less money from the state."

Student 3: "I was surprised at the small number of women on the task force-- just 3. I was disappointed at the lack of minority representation, but not surprised....[many spoke about the word 'product']  and the word 'product' is a difficult one, and its use underscores the different positions and value systems of the task force members. [Most] seemed to think that having a better education and a lower price were mutually exclusive things, and that one must be sacrificed for the other."

Student 4: "As a student, a major concern became evident at this meeting. Members of this task force have been charged with creating innovative solutions to the challenges facing the UW System, challenges that have arisen from a lack of funding. The majority of task force members, however, are not even close to specialists in higher education, let alone public higher education.  In fact these people who are supposed to be coming up with solutions are primarily business people who have spent most of their professional careers in the private sector.  [Thus] it is clear these are powerful voices denouncing the importance of public funding for various reasons."

0 Our Students Aren't Customers

At Monday's Faculty Senate meeting, I'll deliver the annual report from the Committee for Undergraduate Recruitment, Admissions, and Financial Aid (CURAFA). I have chaired that committee for several years, and while it is not usually something I discuss on this blog, I want to address a comment I made at the last meeting.

At that meeting, my colleague Adam Gamoran delivered a report from the committee on faculty compensation, and as part of that report suggested that the university raise more funds to pay faculty by increasing the overall number of undergraduates from out-of-state (OOS). He was not suggesting we decrease the number of in-state (IS) students, but rather that we grow the total number of undergraduates by enrolling more OOS students.

As CURAFA had not been told this suggestion was forthcoming, and I had not read his committee's entire report for the meeting (my fault), this took me by surprise.  In keeping with my scholarly work on higher education policy, I was aware of the likely reaction from students and the public to a proposal that could easily be read as an effort to put on onus on students and families to fund salary increases. Of course, Adam meant that this was needed only because the state wasn't doing its job of funding the university, but it was also clear right away that this wasn't the media message that would carry.  Further, the idea of increasing enrollment among OOS students was something CURAFA had discussed several times with the Office of Admissions, and it was clear from those conversations that this strategy was much easier said than done.

That is because the percent of OOS who enroll at Madison after being accepted is quite low. That "yield rate" is just 22% for domestic non-residents (this excludes Minnesota) -- lower than the national averages for public universities.  The large gap between applications and enrollments among OOS students is a function of many things-- many students apply to large numbers of institutions to improve their odds of admissions or odds of getting multiple offers that can be negotiated, and also many OOS students expect to be offered a nice merit scholarship to induce their attendance.  Yield is thus a far better indicator than applications of how many students truly prefer UW-Madison and can afford to attend it without scholarships.  The latter shouldn't matter generally, but in the case of OOS students, if we have to heavily discount their costs then we will not generate enough revenue to fund the growth in compensation the faculty desire.  Recent trends indicate that discounting is beginning to fail as a mechanism for attracting students, more of whom seem put off by the higher tuition charged for OOS students at public institutions, and private institutions more generally.  Moreover, UW-Madison is unique is being among a handful of public universities bucking the trend of shifting most financial aid from need-based to merit-based-- giving out relatively few scholarships to freshmen (scholarships to upperclassmen are another matter).

A few more specifics. Over the last ten years, UW-Madison's yield rate among domestic non-residents dropped from 26%  to 22%, even as applications for that group doubled.  During the same period, the yield among international non-residents dropped from 37% to 20%, as applications for that group increased sixfold.  But during that time the yield among Wisconsin residents grew from 60 to 62%, while the number of applications remained steady.   That yield among Wisconsin residents is very high, much higher than the national average, and is likely indicative of demand for more seats among Wisconsin taxpayers.

So the punchline is this:  demand among OOS students for enrollment at UW-Madison simply isn't very strong. That's what I honestly intended to say to the Faculty Senate in my remarks. Accomplishing what Adam's committee was suggesting therefore requires shifting (a) the distribution of merit-based aid, and/or (b) the admissions standards for OOS students.  Right now admissions standards appear to be applied similarly for IS and OOS students, on average.  Unless merit-based aid is used to increase the yield substantially, and unless that discounting is actually successful, growing the number of OOS students would require accepting more OOS students-- and this likely means digging deeper into the application pool.  It is an open and important question as to whether UW-Madison, its faculty, and its constituents want to have differential admissions standards based on residency.  That discussion should be had upfront and publicly, and should not be secondary to (or disguised behind) questions about whether the strategy will generate money.  That has been my point all along, and one I am admittedly quite emotional about since it's my view that UW-Madison's greatest strength is its commitments to high-quality education and service to the state, and its longstanding tradition (including among faculty) of putting those things ahead of monetary concerns.   Ours is not a culture rife with showy displays of consumption; instead we dig in and we focus on our students and our research.

Sadly, I failed in my remarks to make these points.  Moved to respond quickly and without time to gather myself sufficiently, instead I erred in suggesting that the applicant pool of OOS students was weaker academically than that for in-state students. The publicly available evidence (presented in terms of group averages) does not show this to be true, and I regret that I was not better prepared to state my concerns about the yield rate better, or able to discuss why I have some reservations about the data we do have available.  In the future I hope CURAFA and committees making recommendations related to admissions and financial aid will communicate better, so that we can all be better equipped to respond on the spot to proposals and questions at Senate.

Now, I know that some will contend we can simply increase the yield of high-achieving students with better recruitment. I disagree, mainly because this will require substantial additional resources for our relatively small admissions office (eating up the projected revenues from the new students), our Badger Alumni are already doing yeomen work, and because we are losing high-achieving OOS students to places we simply cannot and arguably should not be competing with.  For this group, our yield is just 15% -- 35% go to private institutions like Northwestern, 23% end up staying in-state, and 19% go to another out-of-state institution.   To capture the latter two groups, we have to spend more money through effective discounting -- recruitment alone won't do it.

I'll close with some final words about the overall strategy of using OOS students to increase revenues. It sounds too good to be true because it is.  Yes, it seems efficient and even equitable--if you support redistribution among students).  But as Christopher Newfield has pointed out, the "market-smart and mission centered" approach has a thin empirical evidentiary basis (in fact  more examples of market failures than market successes surround us these days) and brings with it some slippery-slope unintended consequences.  Here's one we are all familiar with: over time, UW-Madison has begun to feel more and more elite-- to both the faculty and to the state.  John Wiley spoke of this concern when he was chancellor, and commissioned a study to look at whether in fact family income among UW-Madison students was increasingly out-of-step with Wisconsin family incomes.  The answer in short is that the reason it feels this way is because of the increasingly high family incomes of OOS students.  The growing proportion of students from wealthier families on campus changes the feel of the place in ways both large and small-- they drive demand for more luxurious accommodations and services (witness Lucky!), enjoy clothing and other aspects of conspicuous consumption that make it harder than ever to "keep up with the Joneses,"and utilize their extensive networks and connections to take on powerful positions help lead votes to charge higher tuition and increase spending, so that UW-Madison will look like the private institutions where their friends attend.  Some even use the higher graduation rates of these more-advantaged OOS students to suggest (without any empirical evidence) that they graduate faster because they pay more.   Sure, they bring greater income and geographic "diversity" to some degree (though the real underrepresentation continues to be among students from below the poverty line) and some will say it broadens the horizons of all student-- but at the same time these changes make the flagship feel less and less like it's part of Wisconsin.  And therein lies the long-term problem.

Madison is not an island. It cannot hover into space, pulling apart from its land. Madison is Wisconsin.  And decisions about changing the degree to which it remains Wisconsin should be make democratically and discussed publicly, openly, and frequently and in arenas that separate these important questions about educational quality and climate from the ever-present, neo-liberalizing discussions about markets and revenue.  Treating our students as students, and not paying customers, is the very least we owe them.

0 National Assault on Community Colleges

A thought-provoking new report just out from the Center on the Future of Higher Education documents and laments the assault on community colleges underway across the country.

Bucking historic trends in rising college enrollments, there's been a startling stagnation or even a downturn in enrollment in community colleges, not because demand has declined but because there is insufficient capacity.  In some places and in some programs, thanks to substantial and sustained budget cuts, the community colleges are literally tapped out.

That's right-- students are showing up at "open door" colleges and being effectively turned away.  Welcome to the "new normal."

If you believe that the purpose of public postsecondary education is to provide opportunities to the most advantaged, this is insane. Clearly, the current model for public higher education is broken, and as the report argues, it's time for a "reboot." If you believe that college endows social goods, which entire communities benefit from, then you will support greater public investment in community colleges to reverse this trend. If you believe in equity, and actually understand how people with fewer resources make decisions, rather than assuming they are econometricians, then you'll demand change now.

If on the other hand, if you think that college is merely a private investment that accrues to individual people and you think that markets actually solve more problems than they create, and if you believe education is an economic good comparable to any other product then you probably think public higher education is in exactly the position it deserves.  The market must be working.  Sure, demand is outstripping supply, but thank goodness the private sector is here to help!  We can simply raise tuition at community colleges to fund them, and in the meantime pave the road for private institutions where the public has no say over governance or spending, or for that matter quality. (No, sorry, accreditation isn't going to ensure quality, and just as consumers demonstrate time and again, neither are the students.)  All that matters is that we provide the mirage of opportunity to satisfy our own appetite for the meritocracy narrative, right? And heck, maybe this will finally provide a way of telling everyone outside of the elite classes that they shouldn't be going to college anyway!


Read the report. Either this is a crisis we have to resolve, or we are denying the existence of a crisis because the assault on community colleges is an intentional one designed to promote the growth of private and for-profit institutions.  "Stealth privatization" of higher education, as Richard Vedder called it at a conference my department hosted last week, is no longer so stealth at all.  The Campaign for the Future of Higher Education-- and students nationwide-- want to know, isn't it time to DO something about it?

0 Thoughts on Writing

Lately I've been having numerous conversations with graduate students frustrated with the process of writing research papers.  Mainly they appear overwhelmed with how labor-intensive the process is, and how long it takes to generate much satisfaction.

When responding, I'm finding it helpful to talk about cooking.  I love cooking, always have.  My strong preference is for slow-cooking -- I like the art of braising, how flavors deepen and meld as meats and veggies turn golden. It never fails to amaze me how the results are even better if left to rest in the fridge for a day before serving, since that time allows the fat to congeal and thicken, and then to be skimmed off, leaving a sharper (and healthier) result.

In my experience, a good research paper requires braising.  I think many people don't anticipate this, instead expecting a stir-fry. Those are neat-- you simply do a bunch of slicing and dicing in advance, line everything up, turn the heat on high, and you're done in minutes.  Preparation pays off, and immediate satisfaction is guaranteed. But as anyone who's eaten stir fries knows, the feeling doesn't last-- you're hungry an hour later.

Writing a good paper requires commitment and patience.  Yes, you need a good idea, but you also need the good sense to put the paper down from time to time, and let it simmer.  I've been known to simmer my papers for as long as two years, before removing the lid to check and see how things look.  (Yes, it's because as a sociologist I'm not fearful of being scooped and my work usually isn't time-sensitive-- and yes, I did this pre-tenure too.)  The best part is that I inevitably find something new when I look-- my view is not only freshened, I'm wiser, more skilled, and excited again about the work.  I can skim the fat quite easily, since it's hardened. I may even involve a second cook in the kitchen at that point, to get the seasoning right.  But no matter what, every single time, the paper is better for the braise.

It's thoughtful, satisfying, and worth every minute.  Try it. And enjoy, along with a nice shiraz.

0 What We're Reading: New Evidence on Educational Policies

The recent conference of the Association for Education Finance and Policy, held in Boston, was a terrific event. Especially exciting was the large number of rigorous analyses on higher education policies.  Here are some highlights; a more complete set of papers is here.

1. Peter Hinrichs of Georgetown University examined racial segregation in higher education since 1968. He finds that segregation has diminished, in part because of declining enrollment in historically black colleges and universities.  The exposure of white students to black students has increased sharply since 2000 in private institutions but not in public institutions, and these trends appear concentrated in the South and West.  Far more perplexing is his suggestion that affirmative action bans in some states may have also contributed to declining segregation. But he is appropriately circumspect about these puzzling findings, noting that one also has to consider a range of other issues with regard to affirmative action (see p. 17).

2. Ben Castleman and Bridget Long of Harvard estimated the effects of a Florida need-based financial aid grant on bachelor's degree completion.  Using a regression discontinuity design, the authors found that "an additional $1,000 in grant aid eligibility (in 2000 dollars) increased the probability of immediate enrollment at  a four-year university by 3.2 percentage points, while increasing the probability of staying continuously enrolled through the spring semester of students' freshman year by 4.3 percentage points. An additional $1,000 in aid eligibility increased the cumulative number of credits students completed after three years by 2.1 credits and increased the probability of earning a bachelor’s degree within six years by 4.6 percentage points."  On the other hand, Kevin Stange of U. Michigan finds that charging different amounts of tuition for different majors does not appear to impact major choice.

3. An analysis by Amanda Griffith of Wake Forest considered whether same-gender matching of professor to student enhances student performance.  She finds suggestive evidence that the growing presence of female faculty may contribute to the outstanding performance of women students, at least at the private selective college she studied.

0 Know Before You Go

Recent conversations with several college access programs prompted this post.  My experiences studying the college pathways of students from low-income families have led me to formulate several suggestions for college preparation, and while I plan to write these up in more formal venues in the future, I thought perhaps it's best to begin dissemination now--especially since, in some respects, I think my suggestions are unconventional.

1. There is no one "right" college for you.  Talk about "matching" with a college abounds, and it sort of reminds me of dating advice.  Find the person who is right for you, suited to your skills and temperament, and all will work out. Well, two caveats: first, maybe yes, maybe no.  There are far too many unobservable characteristics of people and colleges to predict success based on observables.  And second, there are many plausible matches-- if one doesn't work, you need to be prepared to try again.  This means that students need to have a healthy sense of possibilities and alternatives, and a framework for evaluating when college is meeting their needs, and when it might be time to transfer.  They need to know how to go about that process, and to not feel ashamed to make the choice to find a new college.   Nearly one in two undergraduates attend more than one institution in pursuit of a degree, and my research with Fabian Pfeffer shows that this is true even among four-year college students.  Transfer is typically in the purview of community colleges, and many universities lack outbound transfer resources-- and will even discourage departure.  Students need to graduate from high school knowing that transfer later might be necessary, and ready to know what to do.

2. You won't do it alone. The normative view of a college student who leaves home, embraces independence, and engages in college life as a fully formed adult is outdated--or perhaps never really existed.  Remarkably, young people are becoming less not more mobile-- and it may not be a terrible thing.  Family ties promote survival, and kinship can mean the difference between starving alone or managing to make it.  Undergraduates in my study are not only receiving support from their family, but also supporting their family emotionally, and by devoting both monetary and non-monetary resources. The trick is finessing how to do this well.  Students need to graduate from high school prepared to discuss with their parents (and other relatives) how they can best stay connected while also getting to focus on their studies.  What do you do when an assignment is due and mom needs you to babysit?  How can you discuss with your parents the amount of your earnings that you can share with them for the rent, while also having enough to buy books?  This requires strong interpersonal skills we have to help young people develop.

3. Shoot for the stars, but don't over-reach. Many programs are focused on helping students aspire to careers in science and engineering, and that message is leading some students to proclaim the intention of becoming such professionals even though high school hasn't quite prepared them. The unintended consequences may be severe.  In one example, I know a student who was rejected from his first choice college-- a public university-- because his application stated a desire to become a physicist.  Yet, while he had excelled in AP Literature and History his senior year, he hadn't gone further than Algebra II in high school.  The university likely denied him because of a sense he wouldn't achieve his goals there-- at least not in four years (one of the unintended consequences of a focus on measuring grad rates?).  While in a better world, he would have been admitted and then apprised of what it would take to achieve that goal, so he could choose a longer time-to-degree or a different path, instead he was denied.  Crushed, he diverted for a community college.  High school students like this one need to ensure their big dreams are either backed up with the right coursework, or counseled to be circumspect in their college applications.

4. It's ok to not know.  Students in my study often speak of fear of failure, of getting bad grades, of being caught not knowing how to answer a question in class. They don't know that professors have much respect for students who can say confidently "I don't know the answer, but I'd sure like to learn."  The cool pose many students adopt when they are unsure alienates professors.  Instead, high school students need to be encouraged to express their concerns, and ask ask ask.  Perhaps this could be modeled for them, and they could practice it in their senior year courses.

5. Always ask twice.  For four years, I have watched students leave college without a degree because of a snafu-- a minor happenstance that felt enormous and real, but could have been resolved by asking for help more than once.  One student left because he thought his misdemeanor conviction meant he could no longer get financial aid- a concern a fellow student confirmed. He needed to ask again at his financial aid office.  Another student left because she was dropped from her program due to low grades, and she thought this meant she was expelled from the entire college.  She waited for the college to call and explain it to her.  I wish that was something we could reasonably expect colleges to do, but right now the orientation and resources simply aren't there.  High school students need to know that when something's wrong, they need to ask- and ask -- and ask.

I hope this proves useful for the many programs and people working to make college success possible for the least likely graduates.  If you have lessons of your own to share, please write in.

0 Is This What Shared Governance Looks Like?

For decades, the price of higher education has been rising at colleges and universities nationwide, and relatively few students and families have done so much as sniff.  While occasional concerns about affordability have been expressed, that message has been quite soft when compared to the loud statement uttered by the millions who walk onto college campuses every year, despite rising tuition and fees.  In other words, actions speak louder than words.  Colleges and universities are able to say: if we are truly charging more than you want to pay, why do you keep buying it?

Times are changing, as some students are informing themselves about why college costs so much-- and where the money is actually spent.  Some are aware that part of the costs are offloaded onto students in the form of student fees, fees which in many places students have no choice but to pay, and have no control over.

UW-Madison is a bit unusual-- it has segregated fees, but it also has a renowned shared governance structure which gives students strong input into how those fees are spent.  This is a model that has helped shape the character of the institution and is among its finest attributes.

Unfortunately, a challenge to shared governance may be upon us.  Recently, the Student Services Finances Committee of the Associated Students of Madison voted to reject a request to increase spending of the Wisconsin Union and Recreational Sports.  Before approving the request, the SSFC wanted more information about how those funds would be spent.  In other words, students demanded transparency and accountability, beyond the high-level look at spending they are typically provided.  Absent that information, they declined the request.

On Tuesday, Interim Chancellor David Ward, a chancellor who has been demonstrably sensitive to issues of affordability and the cost-effective use of resources, overruled that veto.  I admit, I have not spoken to Ward to ascertain his reasons. But whether I would agree or disagree with his reasons are beside the point, which is fundamentally about process.  Shared governance leans heavily on adherence to process -- it is time-consuming but is essentially what the concept is all about. And according to the written process, Ward was to consult with SSFC before overruling their decision -- according to both Sarah Neibart (head of SSFC) and Allie Gardner (head of ASM) he did not.

Given a climate in which faculty, staff, and students have good reason to be concerned about allocation of scarce resources (since every day many of us observe it being allocated in inequitable and ineffective ways), and given the generally low morale due to stagnant and declining compensation, it is more important than ever to preserve the aspects of this university which make it special to its constituents. Shared governance is exactly that. Strong protection of shared governance is an inexpensive way to keeping the University's laborers integrated, involved, and effective. It is essential.

A positive result of this action would be a renewed discussion about the types of reporting that students, faculty, and staff can expect to receive from the administration regarding the allocation of monies generated from tuition and fees. Rigorous assessment of the impacts (the delta) resulting from spending (not the outcomes), can help move this institution through hard times-- and we should all be supportive of that.

0 A 4-Year Degree?

Last week the Chronicle of Higher Education released a new website that seems to have succeeded in finally getting people to sit up and take notice of the huge challenges confronting colleges and universities.  This morning, a colleague stopped by my office, pointed at the 4-year graduation rates of the universities in UW System, and said "Can this possibly be right?"  My answer was "YES. Now what are we going to do about it?"

Finding institutions' 4-year bachelor's degree rates isn't so easy anymore, given that so many popular publications now focus on completion over 6 years. The argument is that "since hardly anyone finishes in 4 anymore, why bother?" I get that-- college experiences have changed, so have the students, and we need to realign our expectations. That said, most of the public still calls the BA a "4-year degree."  And it's simply not.  Here, in case you missed it, are the 4-year degree completion rates of the 13 public universities in Wisconsin. What are we going to do about it?


Eau Claire: 25.7%
Green Bay: 23.1%
La Crosse: 32.4%
Madison: 49.7%
Milwaukee: 14.9%
Oshkosh: 14.6%
Parkside: 9.8%
Platteville: 17.6%
River Falls: 26.0%
Stevens Point: 21.1%
Stout: 19.9%
Superior: 16.4%
Whitewater: 24.5%

The black/white gap, averaged across these schools, is 9.3 vs. 28.6%

Note: These are for students who start college full-time. Part-time freshmen are excluded.

0 Elitism Does Little to Improve Education

Cross-posted from today's Badger Herald

It is a terrible understatement to say that the last year has been a tumultuous one in Wisconsin public higher education.  We have witnessed a crisis of finance, politics, and leadership.  But we can’t claim to have been blindsided, since this crisis was decades in the making and partly our own doing.

Over the last forty years, Wisconsin decided to send its kids to college, but neglected to decide how to pay for it.  Instead, families turned to the government-subsidized public sector, established when far fewer high school graduates went on to college.  As enrollment expanded, the costs grew—partly because there were simply more students and partly because expectations rose.  Families clamored for UW-Madison to be an accessible, affordable version of Harvard—but few wanted to pay the taxes to support it.

So UW-Madison stayed the course, keeping entering classes about the same size and educating as usual for several decades, all the while competing to become a globally recognized research powerhouse. In effect, because the university did not change to accommodate demand, metaphorical gates—even a moat—sprang up around it.  And the crowd just outside the gates grew louder.  “What’s happening at that place?” they began to wonder, “A place that thinks my kid isn’t quite good enough?”  “Who are those professors, complaining about their $70,000, 9 month salaries?”  “And why should we support them?” 

Arguably, today’s UW-Madison leaves as many people of Wisconsin behind as it embraces, and it does so because it is pursuing other justifiably important interests.  But the way it does this, as political scientist Katherine Cramer Walsh documents in a recent WISCAPE paper, comes off as unfeeling, elite, and disengaged.  The message sent by many proud alumni, faculty, and administrators doesn’t help—UW-Madison is allowed, they said, “because we are different, and we are the best.”

In perpetuating that kind of talk, UW-Madison makes a critical mistake. We are not different—we are Wisconsin.  We are only as much “the best” as we help the people of the state to be the best. We are not doing our job if we do not, every year, communicate with the people of Wisconsin about why it is essential that we continue to do our job well—and what accomplishing that requires. That kind of communication is not a series of op-eds or robocalls but regular, two-way conversations where, as Cramer Walsh points out, we are actually listening.  In a time of declining real income for many families, and strong demand for college among very smart kids, we have no choice but to keep costs down and open our doors wider.  At the same time, we are obligated to change the terms of the debate about taxation in this state—to help all residents understand why an investment in public higher education is among the most cost-effective decisions we can make. Doing this requires that we stop acting like Wisconsin public higher education is all about UW-Madison.  It’s time to sit down with the people of this state, listen to their needs, and find ways to meet them.  That’s the only way to rebuild a future for public higher education.  Either we do it now, or we should move over for the for-profit colleges and universities like Phoenix, Kaplan, and DeVry, who are eager for the business.  Make no mistake about it— they’re on the way.