PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
(WTAQ-WLUK) — The 2025-2027 budget request from the Universities of Wisconsin aims to resolve monetary issues the system has been facing for years.
President Jay Rothman is asking regents to approve a request for $855 million.
Representative Lee Snodgrass, D-57th District, who represents the Menasha and central Appleton areas, says it’s a great step forward.
“It’s great to see the UW System president making a real investment in what is really needed for the UW System,” she said.
Snodgrass added, “I think the Board of Regents is going to be in favor. I love all of the stuff that was in there.”
A nationwide finance report on public funding for a four-year education ranked the Universities of Wisconsin as 43rd out of 50.
Snodgrass says that’s tragic for the system.
“We are in the bottom tier of funding and we’re surrounded by states in the top tier of state funding, and what that does is it creates a terrible disparity where we’re not going to be able to retain students that we want to have entering the Universities of Wisconsin schools. They’re going elsewhere because those schools and those states are making an investment,” Snodgrass said.
Contained in the proposal is a goal to preserve two-year degrees and satellite campuses across the state.
UW-Oshkosh closed its Fond du Lac campus this past June and is closing its Fox Cities campus at the end of the 2025 spring semester.
But Rep. Snodgrass tells us it was more than money that factored into the closings.
“Part of it was financial, and part of it was simply lower enrollment, and some of it is really competition from other schools, so it’s really only one part of the puzzle,” she said.
The funding proposal also contains wage increases for faculty and staff of 3-5%.
Snodgrass said it’s important for the state universities to be competitive.
“We don’t want to keep losing talent to other states who are making those investments and paying more. By giving people a pay raise, a well deserved pay raise, to do the hard work that they do, it keeps them here and it brings students here. So I’m in support of it,” she said.
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