Blame Wisconsin’s Scott Walker . . . and Everyone Before Him

By: Katlyn Riggins

Reactions are coming in to our recently released report detailing key failings of Wisconsin’s main higher education institutions. Reminder: We found the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) to be one of the least accessible public universities in the country.

(Congratulations University of Virginia, you’re finally out of the bottom spot.)

Turns out that UW-Madison and nearby University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UW-Milwaukee) are in many ways photo negatives of one another. In fact, they present one of the starkest contrasts among within state public research universities nationwide in terms of student access and success.

The Reaction

Political and college leaders in particular were not happy with our critique of UW-Madison. The most notable reaction from current leading political figures was to blame former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. You see Walker removed the collective bargaining rights of public college faculty members in a 2011 budget bill. And his budget proposal in 2015 stripped the state’s Wisconsin Idea of its public-service mission.

We’d be happy to blame Walker for UW-Madison’s shortcomings on student access, but turns out he isn’t to blame or isn’t to blame alone. UW-Madison has had a consistently and strikingly low percentage of full-time, first-time Pell grant recipients enrolled dating all the way back to 2002.

The next most frequent defensive reaction we got to our report was to point with pride to UW-Madison’s free college promise program, Bucky’s Tuition Promise, for students from low-income families. While it’s true the Bucky promise program constitutes a good first step for UW-Madison, it should be highlighted that it only covers the cost of tuition and fees. Housing, transportation, textbooks and other common college costs – costs that total more than ordinary tuition and fees — are not covered. Poor students have to borrow mightily for those at UW-Madison.

But setting aside the Bucky Promise’s omission of support for room and board, what good is the promise if UW-Madison is not letting in low-income students in the first place?

Finally, there this pre-emptive doozy that UW-Madison put out. Whereas we say UW-Madison’s Pell enrollment rate is less than 12 percent, UW-Madison trumpets the latest figures that put Pell recipients at around 18 percent. But, but wait for it . . . that’s 18 percent of students receiving financial aid.

See that little magic asterisk below? Tsk, tsk.

Hat tip to James Murphy for pointing out that 18 percent of the 62 percent of UW-Madison students who receive financial aid equals 11.2 percent of the overall population – not counting rounding – basically what we reported.

So just to be clear not only does UW-Madison enroll one of the lowest percentages of Pell Grant students — typically those from families with less than $60,000 a year in income — in the country at approximately 12 percent of all students; on the other side of the equation, some 38 percent of students at enrolled at UW-Madison are from families so wealthy that they’re deemed to have zero financial need.

The public flagship university in liberal Madison, Wisconsin is one of the least accessible, most inequitable public colleges in America. Why should progressives give it a pass?

A Path Forward

In our report and an op-ed since, we called for UW-Madison to enroll more working class and low-income students or transfer funds to UW-Milwaukee to help it do a better job teaching and graduating the working class and low-income student demographic UW-Madison should be serving.

Too often, the first instinct of political patrons, alumni, or personnel of schools being challenged to do better by students from low-income families is to be defensive or place the blame for the data on someone or something else. But what proud patrons, alumni, students, and really all of us should be prioritizing is student opportunity and student service. If that takes a little push, so be it.

Increased college access and improved college performance are moral imperatives.  It’s time progressives and those in higher education come to grips with that challenge.

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