By Dan Simmons
The proposed budget cuts and move to a public authority for the University of Wisconsin System will hurt low-income students, low-wage workers and low-enrollment campuses most, said a statewide students group that vowed Monday to fight the changes.
“We have more power than we realize and the arc of justice is long,” said Eleni Schirmer of the Teaching Assistants Association, the campus union for graduate students at UW-Madison.
She and others said at a Capitol news conference that implementing $300 million in cuts to the UW System and moving the universities away from state control would have a cascading effect: tuition would rise, edging out low-income students; programs would be cut, especially those for first-generation students; employees would lose jobs, especially classified staffers who make little; and students, faculty and staff would lose influence in campus decisions once shared governance and faculty tenure are stripped out of state law...
...“Sadly, the state of the students is drastically not well,” said Amanda McGovern, a UW-Stevens Point student and president of the United Council of University of Wisconsin Students, which organized the press conference.
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