H -°, L 6° | Tomorrow: 
H 18°, L 6°In response to Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget proposal, the Associated Students of Madison and the Student Labor Action Coalition held a press conference Thursday to express their anger over several of Doyle’s proposals.
“While ASM applauds the governor’s efforts to keep UW at a competitive fiscal level when compared with other Big 10 schools, it is essential that tuition not exceed the lower limits of Doyle’s recommendation of a 5-7 percent tuition increase,” ASM Legislative Affairs representative Krissy Fischer said.
SLAC member Joel Feingold urged Doyle and legislators to “take the knife out of our back” by refusing to cut 1800 state workers, restoring the funding for UW disability centers, reducing tuition costs and conferring with the Teaching Assistants’ Association.
“He’s starving this university,” Feingold said. “It’s our UW, not yours.”
Feingold said Doyle’s proposal to hold tuition increases between 5 and 7 percent for the biennial budget, a possible total increase of 14 percent for the two years, is “unacceptable.”
Doyle’s budget, unveiled Tuesday, includes increased funding for the university system and financial aid.
But UW tuition has increased by more than 33 percent in the past two years, and according to Fischer, “any increase in tuition signifies a substantial blow to struggling families.”
Fischer stressed the importance of investing in UW as a means of fostering economic growth. According to Fischer, US News and World Report in 2003 rated UW as the seventh best public university in the nation. Fischer added that the UW Research Park generates over 4,000 jobs with double the average state salary.
“UW-Madison’s impact on the Wisconsin economy is $4.2 billion-over 10 times the investment made in it by the state annually,” Fischer said.
Campus Accessibility Campaign volunteer Stephanie Biese said Doyle “demonstrated a disregard for the higher education of students with disabilities” in Tuesday night’s proposal. She said Doyle’s cut of $2 million would affect more than 4,000 students’ access to education.
“This line item’s exclusion is a giant step backward for the state of Wisconsin and its tradition of providing services for students with disabilities,” Biese said.
According to Biese, funding for students with disabilities is important for current and future students.
She said without the “relatively small” funding of $2 million, a number of services provided to students with disabilities would be cut, restricting many students from attending the university.
According to Biese, UW would be unable “to enforce the equality that the UW System believes is necessary.”
Feingold agreed cuts in funding for disability centers “are simply unacceptable.”
Kelly Egan, ASM chair of Legislative Affairs, said the organization would continue to meet with contacts in the governor’s office and also communicate their concerns with key legislators.
According to Feingold, the “Whose UW” group is arranging large demonstrations to bring attention to students’ concerns regarding Doyle’s proposed budget.
“It is now the responsibility of the state legislators to uphold the standards with which ASM and the UW student body has challenged them by supporting our amazing system, which will, with the proper means, continue to rise to the top,” Fischer said.
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Way to divide people, Feingold. “Us vs. You” is a tried and true political strategy, no matter the issue.
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Who is being divided here? Certainly not students. “You” are elected officials; “Us” are students geniunely hurt by tuition increases. There’s simply no other way to approach the issue—this isn’t a false dichotomy. The “us/you” disctinction makes perfect sense when it’s voters and otherwise concerned people voicing concern about policy.
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So, ASM is raising student fees next year and yelling about tuition? HYPOCRITICAL!!!
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ASM is such a perpetual fucking joke.
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WRONG. This is an absolute dichotomy. Everyone understands the students’ half of the dichotomy, but no one besides frickin’ Feingold thinks only elected officials are on the other side, by the way he talks in public.
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if asm is such a joke, why don’t you do something about it, besides bitch anonymously. at least some kids have the guts to bitch about it with their names attached in the beacon. asm fees are less than the amount that tuition is being raised by. so a more productive way to fight costs would be to fight tuition costs.
go to the asm office, 511 MU, and see what all they are working on. access for disabled students, minority student rights, larger basketball student section, there is so much going on that is run by a relatively small, dedicated group of students. if it were not for asm or a similar student gov, wiley would privatize the shit out of the school and whore off every student, but i guess you’d like that, free market capitalism and all.
i dare you to try to make an argument against having students have any sort of control over the school. i double dare you. because you can’t do it without making a bigger ass out of yourself.
who else is on the other side? do taxpayers really want their tax money to go to shitty schools that end up driving the top WI students to U of M and Illinois? because that’s a great fucking investment. more funding results in a better workforce. so it would seem that businesses would want to put more money into the kids that will end up working for them.
and don’t mess with joel. just because you’re too cowardly to present your beliefs to scrutiny in public.
because unlike most of you, who will just bitch about things and whine and complain, he has objectives, he has an end goal. not just a list of grievances, but a list of solutions, and a plan of attack.
so organize your own press conference, and present your ideas to the public, if you’ve got enough confidence in them.