Governor Dropout and ALEC-GOPs starved higher ed in Wisconsin, and now we're way behind

Today gave another bit of information that shows just how far Wisconsin fell under the Reign of Error of Scott Walker and the Wisconsin GOP in the 2010s. This time, it shows how higher education in the state was hit hard by Governor Dropout and the ALEC Crew.

A national report ranking state funding for higher education shows Wisconsin saw the fourth largest decline in per-student spending between 2013 and 2018. The only states with larger decreases in that timeframe were Mississippi, West Virginia and Oklahoma.

The analysis by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, or SHEEO, looked at higher education finances since the Great Recession. It found educational appropriations fell by more than 24 percent nationwide since 2008, mainly due to increases in enrollment and a lack of proportional funding increases.

But between 2013 and 2018 the report showed the trend reversing in a majority of states, with the United States as a whole seeing more than a 15 percent increase in state funds per student. Overall, the SHEEO report shows states are on average still spending $1,000 less per student than before the Great Recession.

Those numbers are based on this definition.

Educational appropriations are a measure of state and local support available for public higher education operating expenses including ARRA funds, and exclude appropriations for independent institutions, financial aid for students attending independent institutions, research, hospitals, and medical education.

But Wisconsin not only didn’t have a 15% increase per student, they had spending go down by more than 8% ($567), for 47th in the US.

If you go into the full report by SHEEO, Wisconsin looks even worse. For example, our neighbors to the west have had their investment in public higher education skyrocket while Wisconsin has cut back.

5-year change in higher ed spending per FTE student
Minn +35.8%
Ohio +20.3%
Mich +16.1%
Ind. +8.9%
Ill. +6.0%
Iowa -1.1%
Wis. -8.1%

The revenue per student statistic in this report measures both state spending and tuition revenue, and in Wisconsin is well below the US average in this category. We were 43rd in the US in 2018, and well below the rest of the Midwest, who all invest more than the US average in their college students.

Even worse is that Wisconsin was above the US average 5 years ago. Remember that Scott Walker and WisGOP have frozen in-state tuition for undergraduates in the state in that time period, but have never given schools the tax dollars that would let them afford higher costs due to inflation.

As a result, when you adjust for that inflation, Wisconsin actually had less available per student in 2018 than it did in 2013, one of only 2 states in America to do that. And it is well behind what our neighboring states have chosen to do.

5-year change in Tuition + state aid per FTE student
US
Vermont +2.7%
Mississippi +2.3%
Oklahoma +1.7%
Wisconsin -0.8%
Missouri -0.9%

Midwest
Mich +17.2%
Minn +14.7%
Ill. +10.4%
Iowa +6.8%
Ind. +6.6%
Ohio +6.1%
Wis. -0.8%

Another reason the unfunded freeze has been such a problem for higher education in Wisconsin is that the report notes that enrollment in higher education also continues to decline in the state, down nearly 8% over the last 5 years.

Higher education FTE Enrollment, Wisconsin
FY 2008 219,006
FY 2013 229,463
FY 2018 211,160

It also makes Wisconsin’s decline in higher ed funding and spending all the more alarming, because even if these totals had merely kept up with inflation over the last 5 years, there would have been a decrease due to fewer students. So it’s a double-loss of resources, and it means that there is a longer road back to repair ourselves from the damage.

And the result is the cuts in programs and faculty at multiple UW campuses around the state. This includes the recent revelations at UW-Stevens Point, who backed away from their plans to eliminate programs, but at the expense of many jobs.

A day after the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point said it would back away from a proposal to eliminate four liberal arts majors, the university released data showing how many faculty and staff positions it had lost to avoid the cuts.

Over a six-year period ending in fiscal 2020, the school expects to decrease by more than 130 full-time equivalent positions. More than 40 of those will come in the next fiscal year alone.

The combination of resignations, retirements, buyouts and unfilled vacancies will save the university $3.6 million in the upcoming fiscal year, according to university data.

In addition, there was this analysis from another UW chancellor in the Wisconsin Public Radio article that revealed Wisconsin’s drop in funding.

"In the 2015, 2016, 2017 period we’ve cut about $41 million or $42 million out of our budget," Mone said. "So, our faculty and staff are down about 13 percent since 2015, and we’ve had to cut some programs and reduce things."

Data from the UW System as a whole show the number of faculty at the system's colleges and universities has declined since 2014 while the number of instructional academic staff has increased slightly since 2015.

Mone claims that things are a bit more stable at UWM after some more funding in the 2017-19 budget, but that’s little consolation after several years of falling behind other states that recognize higher education is a key investment to a state’s economic development.

And watch how state Republicans will try to play ”divide and conquer” by screeching against any attempt by Governor Evers to try to help Wisconsin's higher education system recover from the damage the GOP has imposed. It’s already too late to make it up in the 2010s, and if the ALEC Crew continues to get their way, this state could become non-competitive for talent for a long time.

But then again, maybe that’s the intelligence of their design.