Dive Brief:
- While discussions are only informal at this point, Wisconsin legislators are beginning to consider the benefits of realigning public higher ed in the state.
- The University of Wisconsin System includes 13 two-year campuses and 13 four-year campuses that have faced dwindling funding, while the Wisconsin Technical College system operates 16 institutions that have benefitted from increasing state aid.
- Gazette Xtra reports that combining systems has been discussed in the past, and a two-year, $250 million cut in state funding for the UW system may be prompting another look.
Dive Insight:
Wisconsin higher education suffered one of the biggest state funding cuts in the nation this year. The cut was originally going to be $300 million over two years in exchange for greater freedom from regulation, but that freedom never materialized and legislators only knocked off $50 million from the proposed cuts.
Illinois is functioning without a budget at the start of its fiscal year, and public schools are bracing for proposed cuts there, too. Much of the rest of the country, however, has seen slow but steady reinvestment in higher ed.