Badgers United Pushes To End 6-Year Tuition Freeze At UW Schools

A new group is forming to push for ending a University of Wisconsin System tuition freeze and more state funding for UW-Madison.

Badgers United launched Monday. The board of directors includes former Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, a UW-Madison alumnus. John and Tashia Morgridge, alumni who have donated millions of dollars to the campus, also sit on the board.

Badgers United executive director Amber Scroeder told WPR the six-year long tuition freeze at UW-Madison and other UW campuses is limiting what the university can do for Wisconsin. Lawmakers who have supported the state tuition freeze have argued it’s meant to make college more affordable for prospective students and their families. Schroeder pointed to UW-Madison’s Bucky’s Tuition Promise, which provides grants and scholarships to pay tuition for qualifying students from low-income families, has helped make the state’s flagship campus more accessible.

“But we also believe in charging market rates for tuition and right now we’re No. 10 in the Big 10 for in-state resident tuition,” said Schroeder. “We just believe that students that are able should pay market rate.”

Republican lawmakers have kept tuition rates for in-state students frozen since 2013. The GOP-controlled Joint Finance Committee in May approved a proposal in Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ budget that extends the freeze for another two years.

Evers’ budget called for $127 million in additional state aid for the system but the committee cut that back to $58 million. System President Ray Cross called the reduction a “kick in the shins.”

Wisconsin is among 17 states with current tuition freezes or tuition caps set by state lawmakers, according to an analysis by the Education Commission of the States. Senior policy analyst Sarah Pingel told WPR that Washington State and Virginia have enacted tuition caps and freezes while providing more money to their higher education systems though most do not.

“The trend, unfortunately, is not to backfill on a state’s budget when they constrict the ability to generate revenue through tuition,” said Pingel.

According to an analysis by Wisconsin’s nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the amount of General Purpose Revenue (GPR) for UW System operations totaled more than $1 billion in the 2010-2011 school year. For the 2018-2019 school year the report notes “the comparable number is $905 million GPR. Over that time, the consumer price index (CPI) increased by 15.2 percent, so this reduction is even more substantial if adjusted for inflation.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include original reporting by WPR staff.