With Gov. Evers, UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin and UW President Jay Rothman not convinced, it’s unlikely that a low-level recommendation to spin out UW-Madison from the 13-university system will go anywhere.
An 18-member “study committee” on the future of the UW System voted 13-5 to recommend that its flagship campus be allowed to determine its own destiny and become accountable to its own board of regents.
That accountability is appropriate. While Madison’s enrollment keeps growing, with now more than 50,000 students, other metrics suggest the need for improved performance, such as:
- A significant drop as an overall university ranking in a number of national ratings.
- A drop in ranking to 8th in research and development, down from the top five for many years.
- A dramatic falloff in patent and license revenue from research at its affiliated Wisconsin Alumnae Research Foundation
- Except for the export of its talented graduates, little impact on the economy of the state outside of Dane County.
- A low percentage of Wisconsin students in its enrollment – down to 48% in-state and 52% out-of-state. The non-resident students pay much higher tuition. Many top graduates from Wisconsin high schools end up elsewhere and therefore are less likely to settle here and add to Wisconsin’s economic leadership.
The UW committee, which met only six times, is a creature of the legislature through a Legislative Council, which usually produces bills as a work product. Whether legislative leaders act in 2025 on the Madison spinoff and other lesser recommendations remains to be seen.
That two freshmen legislators were chosen to lead the “study” points to the leaders’ arms-length position on the committee’s “findings.”
One glaring weakness in the committee’s work is the absence of a go-forward structure for the other 12 universities across the state. Note: that’s where most legislators live. That is where the biggest enrollment drop-off and financial stresses have occurred, not in Dane County.
Six out-of-state satellite campuses have already been shuttered – without the involvement of the UW Board of Regents. If the governing board is not involved in such major decisions, what is it there for?
Would the 12 universities remain a system, perhaps under UW-Milwaukee as its PhD granting flagship?
Would UW System headquarters move from Madison to Milwaukee – in the heart of the state’s business center?
Or, would the 12 be divided into four regions, each with its own regent board for more intimate accountability? The state’s economy is already regional in nature.
The committee did tip-toe into the arcane, secretive, inequitable 50-year-old allocation of roughly $1 billion of annual state taxpayer support of UW.
It is inexplicable that UW-La Crosse and UW-Whitewater receive only $3600 per student while UW-Madison gets $10,983.
Madison supporters, including five heavy-hitter businessmen on the committee, contend that its world-class status requires disproportionate resources. But that flies in the face of multiple revenue streams the other 12 campuses don’t enjoy, including funding from:
- WARF, an affiliated entity with $3 billion assets and $1.5 billion in R&D revenues, which cover many Madison overheads.
- UW Foundation, a $4 billion related entity that supports the flagship.
- Higher tuitions from its student body of more than 50,000.
- UW Health, a $5 billion operation that underpays UW-Madison for use of its facilities and its brand name.
One elegant solution pops to the surface that could ease the financial struggles of the other 12 universities: spinout UW Health, the biggest health care operation in the state and its Quartz health insurance arm. They are both non-core educational assets that other major universities keep separate. Allocate the proceeds of several billion dollars to the remaining system.
With this exception: retain several billion dollars to endow an increase of in-state students on the prestigious Madison campus to 75% of enrollment from the current 48%.
In short, UW-Madison would buy its independence, complete with the bonding power it covets. That could get a warm reception from advocates of a separate authority for the flagship and, importantly, from a majority of legislators who live across the state. Without their votes, nothing happens.
The “study committee” stopped far short of a fundamental restructuring. It played small ball in an era when major strategically reorganization is the order of the day in the face of severe challenges to higher education systems across the country.
