Here & Now

Student Regent Shares Thoughts on UW's Cash Reserves

Frederica Freyberg:

The more than $400 million tuition surplus is described as being amassed on the backs of students and their ever-rising cost to go to the University of Wisconsin. One of those students is in a unique position to understand all of this, UW Board of Regents student member, Katherine Pointer. I sat down with her on campus this afternoon to get her perspective.

How surprised were you when this kind of blew up and then presented itself in the committee hearing at the Capital this week?

Katherine Pointer:

I was quite surprised. We knew we had a surplus. We had talked about the numbers, but not in the way that the media and the legislature are talking about it. We talk about the numbers being already allocated to certain projects. We talked about, you know, that 17% of our overall budget. Is that too low? There were conversations about should we raise it or lower it about two years ago. Our conversations within the board were quite different than this blow up that the media and the legislature have latched on to.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, given that, do you take exception to the way it's been regarded, or presented?

Katherine Pointer:

I think it’s been presented overly negative for some good reasons. I think the legislature, and especially our constituent students and families, have a right to be little bit upset and maybe concerned. I don’t think we communicated the surplus and presented it. We didn’t control the story, as I’m sure you would say, in presenting this. I think that’s really where we fell short in this communication, this transparency.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, now people are calling for a tuition freeze or even maybe a reduction. What's your reaction to that?

Katherine Pointer:

That's right. I was supportive of a freeze prior to the story and prior to surplus being ousted, I guess you could say. I think we can't continue to raise tuition. We can't have that as a viable funding source moving forward. Putting that on the backs of our students I don't think is a good idea. So I’m very supportive of the tuition freeze. I’m glad that the governor called for it, and individual legislators calling for it is wonderful. If we get a tuition freeze from the legislature, that's great, however I hope at the June meeting the Board of Regents won't approve any type of tuition increase, even if we don’t have it from the legislature not to.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, you did vote for the last five and a half percent tuition increase. Why?

Katherine Pointer:

That's right. Well, that speaks a little bit to the volatility of our funding. We had just received quite a slash in our funding, quite a decrease from the state, in terms of what we had been used to in Act 32, so we really needed to make up that additional revenue. And that 5.5% tuition increase was necessary at the time. We knew the consequences, the ramification. I'm a student. I pay for my tuition, so I saw it on my bill, and it certainly wasn't not easy. It was a hard decision. But I do believe that was necessary just to continue to operating at the level we're operating within the system.

Frederica Freyberg:

Another thing, of course, that they're talking about doing as a result of this surplus is cutting into the $181 million that the governor has in his proposed budget for the UW System, and they are talking about potentially now giving that to public K-12 schools instead, and allowing the UW System to use the reserves to make up the difference. And no one is clear at this moment, at least not myself, about how much of that they might take or all of it. What do you think of that?

Katherine Pointer:

Well, prior to the surplus story running, I think it would have been certainly tough to get the budget passed within the legislator. We were working on it and having conversations with individual legislators about how you feel about the governor’s budget. We are very excited about the governor’s budget. We want it to be kept in the entirety. So certainly we are continuing those conversations, those dialogues, to make sure that we can ensure we get that 180 million.

Frederica Freyberg:

What kinds of reactions are you seeing on the part of your peers, other students, about this $414 million tuition surplus?

Katherine Pointer:

I think students are angry, and I think part of that is the misunderstanding, the miscommunication, on the part of the board and the system. But I hate when people call it a tuition surplus. It really isn't a tuition surplus. It really is a reserve for the system as a whole to ensure ourselves that we have money to continue to operate if money is slashed from that state or from the federal government. So again, we need to control that. We need to change the conversation. It isn't a tuition surplus really.

Frederica Freyberg:

And yet, that’s where that money came from, tuition proceeds.

Katherine Pointer:

In part, yep.

Frederica Freyberg:

One of the things that President Riley said when he was before he was before that committee this week was that campuses have tried to trim costs. It’s not though they're spending with wild abandon, he suggested. And they've tried to do this by using lecturers, for example, instead of professors and that kind of thing. Have you seen a reduction in quality as a student as a result of some of the so-called cost containment?

Katherine Pointer:

Absolutely, at our campuses, we are certainly doing a reduction of costs. We know that dollars are low, and that we have to fight every reasorce that we have. We are not wasting, I believe, anything that we receive. In terms of a reduction of quality, I don’t believe that’s the case. Certainly not on the Madison campus. I would say that I think is visible to the students, and what I’m concerned about is the morale of our faculty, and our administration, and our stuff. And I think that's visible to students, more so than any lack of quality. They're doing more with less. You certainly see that morale, and the lack thereof, on campuses, and it’s been that way throughout the past two years. I think that's more visible for students. I certainly don’t think we're lacking in the quality of education we're delivering.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Katie Pointer, thanks very much.

Katherine Pointer:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

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