Here & Now

Ray Cross on UW System's Priorities this Year

Frederica Freyberg:

The University of Wisconsin will be navigating the political waters in the coming months, as a new two-year state budget is decided. Wisconsin Public Television is part of the UW. Recently, I met with UW System president, Ray Cross. I started by asking whether the UW System’s current budget reserves of about $174 million out of a roughly $6 billion budget are adequate and appropriate.

Ray Cross:

No. Obviously, I don’t think there’s anyone sitting in this position that wouldn’t think that we need more money. I think that’s true. But the tradeoffs right now are, how do we manage that wisely, given revenue projections, given the need for students to have access to affordable higher education experience? There are a whole bunch of competing and sometimes competing factors that we need to consider, and those are important issues.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, you have requested $95.2 million in the next two-year budget. One of the chairs of the legislative budget-writing committee has described that as a tough ask. What’s your response to the apparent reluctance to go to that number?

Ray Cross:

Well, first of all, we have to appreciate the situation they’re in, with Medicaid going up. I think that’s an additional $700 million commitment this year. Other areas, such as the need for k-12, additional money with k-12, road construction and building. We have to understand all of the competing interests, some of which are nondiscretionary on their part. So I think the comment is, I don’t know how we’re going to secure the funding to accomplish that. So my response to that is, I don’t think the state has a choice. Now, it’s important to understand that the $95.2 million reflects some of our commitment. In other words, in addition to that $95.2, we’re putting $45 or $46 million on the table from our resources to direct activity toward specific talent development areas the state needs. We’re trying to be very focused on what the state needs and to use that money to help the state build its economy. Without an investment in that side of the state’s need, I think it’s impossible for the state’s economy to recover to a very vibrant economy. And that’s part of what the university is trying to focus on. How do we directly help the economy of this state?

Frederica Freyberg:

How do you?

Ray Cross:

Well, long-term, the importance of understanding our talent development initiative is critical. We cannot grow this economy when there are 170,000 or 180,000 jobs unfilled in this state, something in that area, according to the Department of Workforce Development. And at least a third of those jobs require a baccalaureate or higher. It’s those jobs that are critical to the future of this state, absolutely critical. How do we do that? And those are in specific fields, health care, engineering, many of them in business. And it’s important that we develop those because those jobs are jobs that create more jobs.

Frederica Freyberg:

How do you get people into those programs? Is it a question of outreach or what are the specifics of this plan to develop the talent to fill the jobs?

Ray Cross:

Well, we have three strategies. The first is a talent path, getting more students into those curriculum, those– preparing them for those curriculums in high school. The talent path, we call that. Improving the proficiency in math, reducing the number of remedial math required– students that require remedial math, increasing course options, more students taking college courses in high school. And then retaining them in our system and building the infrastructure, including the faculty in those programs, where we need to expand faculty and services to support those career fields.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, the university system is under a two-year tuition freeze and the governor has said that he would like to see another two-year tuition freeze. How has that affected the university? And how might it, going forward?

Ray Cross:

Well, it’s probably affected us in three ways. Obviously, we would prefer to have more money. I think most people would, whether that comes from the state or from tuition. On the other hand, we also realize we have to do our part to reduce costs for students and their families. So part of what we’re attempting to go do and in the first action we’re taking is working to re-engineer our back room or back office operations and our business operations so we can transfer some of those savings to the instructional side or front office of our organization. So we’re trying to find ways to reduce costs in the way we operate. Secondly, it’s also allowed us the opportunity or provided us with the opportunity to examine what we’re doing academically. Can we reduce the number of sections here? Can we do something differently here in the way we teach this course? What are we doing with respect to low-enrolled programs? Those kinds of things are things we’re exploring. Additionally, we’re trying to find a way to improve our marketing and outreach to better serve high school students so that they can get a head start of this effort and reduce their cost as well.