H 23°, L 4° | Tomorrow: 
H 21°, L 6°Any comment on the past several months in Wisconsin’s state government will yield few if any yays and a bevy of nays.
As usual, the Herald “kiss of death” met our panel of endorsed candidates. This may not be a total loss in the governor’s mansion; our support for either candidate fell far short of a vote of confidence.
With control over the Board of Regents now up for grabs between Governor-elect Jim Doyle, a Democrat, and the Republican-controlled state Senate, we have urged those who govern the state to do their best in keeping partisan politics away from the governing of UW.
With luck, the board will be complete with fully confirmed members before next semester is out. The current situation — with unconfirmed members holding seats and expired terms extending past their deadline — is not conducive to productive change and trumps the concept of citizen control over the UW System. We again issue a call to the statehouse to keep UW off the political trading table.
Aside from changes at the governor’s mansion, the biggest news in the state this semester has been the looming budget deficit. UW officials are being told to cut $44 million in spending, which is forcing UW to institute hiring freezes, enrollment freezes and travel freezes.
UW System President Katharine Lyall said the system is already stretched to the limits with how many students UW can afford to take in, and to continue increasing enrollment without increasing funds would begin reduce the quality of education at UW.
UW and state officials need to concentrate on quality, not quantity, when it comes to the to the education provided at this state’s universities. If raising in-state tuition is a consequence of this, so be it. In-state students can bear more of the cost of their education if it means keeping the quality of education high.
The surcharge imposed on out-of-state students needs to be eliminated so it doesn’t get to the point where UW is pricing out-of-state students out of Madison. With the lowest in-state tuition in the Big Ten and one of the highest out-of-state tuition levels, Madison needs to keep the bar high by leveling the playing field.
