The Milwaukee Bucks are more important than higher education in Scott Walker's Wisconsin.
My son is a freshman in high school. He earns A's and B's, plays football, and is a varsity wrestler. He takes honors classes and starting next year will be taking all AP classes. His dream is to go to his hometown school, the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He will graduate from high school as a member of the class of 2018. Remember that year.
This past week, Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker gave the Milwaukee Bucks $220 million dollars to build a new arena, funded in part by a "jock tax" paid by Milwaukee Bucks players, employees, and visiting teams. The tax will generate enough money to cover debt payments on $220 million in state-issued bonds for a new arena.
Also, during the same week, Walker announced that the University of Wisconsin system would get more autonomy; however, it would also be looking at $300 million less in state funding. The good governor, who lacks a college degree, said, "Maybe it’s time for faculty and staff to start thinking about teaching more classes and doing more work and this authority frees up the [University of Wisconsin] administration to make those sorts of requests."
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Walker really should not go off script when he speaks in public. Just consider:
A February study of workloads across 11 departments showed that UW-Madison faculty work 63 hours per week on average, the university said.
I know my own professors when I attended the University of Wisconsin, Stout, had office hours nights and weekends, did their own research, taught classes, and still had to find time to raise funds. Walker's comments were an insult to every single professor working in the UW system.
Of course, as is normally the case with anything in Wisconsin, that is not the worst of it:
UW schools would continue to operate for two more years under a tuition freeze that has been in place since 2013. That means they would have to cut their programs to account for the dropped funding. UW System officials welcomed the plan to give them more autonomy but warned the cuts would mean fundamental changes in how they operate the system's 26 campuses. "This is going to mean layoffs in all of my schools and colleges," said UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank, calling the reduction likely the largest cut in the system's history.
A $300 million funding cut over two years from the UW system, and a tuition freeze that will expire in 2017. Remember that year I told you to remember earlier? My son would start college one year after what will likely be the largest tuition increase in the university's history.
What is most interesting is that Walker is okay with raising taxes on millionaire athletes; however, we won't raise taxes on his millionaire donors to fund higher education in Wisconsin. The Bucks will get a new arena ... and my son and his peers will likely end up going to the University of Minnesota under the reciprocity agreement between Wisconsin and Minnesota. Young people's chance for a quality education in Wisconsin are dwindling every day that Walker and the GOP cabal are in power.