Perhaps I went too far.

When I argued yesterday that accessibility should take precedence at UW System schools — although educational quality should be the focus at Madison — I neglected one very simple possibility: UW-Madison can still have its cake and eat it too. It’s just uncertain whether public funding will play a role.

Chancellor John Wiley has made it clear from day one the Legislature has not paid its “fair share.” But during a sit-down interview with The Badger Herald, he said only a few specific legislators have actively attempted to derail UW’s search for funding.

“There are about three or four who get up in the morning and say, ‘What can we hit the university with today?’” Wiley said.

Count Rep. Stephen Nass, R-Whitewater, among that group. Of course, he doesn’t see it as any sort of vendetta or attack — just advocating on behalf of students and taxpayers. “Students are certainly first and should be considered first instead of, as they usually do, the administrative end protecting their own,” Nass said in an interview. “They need to look critically at themselves, and they just refuse to do that.”

Mr. Nass was one of the most vocal critics of UW-Madison’s decision to stand by Kevin Barrett; he’s used every opportunity to point out the university’s more expensive failures and will scrutinize UW-Madison requests every chance he can. Needless to say, the depictions of Mr. Nass have not been flattering. Former mayor and UW alumnus Paul Soglin has called him “an embarrassment to Wisconsin,” while an Isthmus article depicted him as a marionette for his research assistant Mike Mikalsen. But there is no utility in building up Mr. Nass only to tear him down. Instead of letting the consensus opinion completely write off his position, let’s consider: Is there any validity to his criticism of this university?

Yes, but it’s unlikely to force UW-Madison to budge.

Mr. Nass’s point is fairly basic: Why give money to system schools when they, especially UW-Madison, waste too much of the funds they’re given on “unnecessary items?” The problem lies in determining what those items are.

Administrative costs are one of Mr. Nass’s primary targets. In the proposed Assembly budget, Republicans suggested reducing the amount of requested funding for UW System administration by nearly $4 million by cutting three of Mr. Wiley’s personal assistants and a number of vice chancellor positions systemwide. Mr. Nass believes the fact of the system’s financial problems lies in those unnecessary positions and the refusal to consolidate those functions.

Mr. Wiley argued that the items of waste are limited to relatively small points such as multiple newspaper subscriptions. That may be, but I challenge him or UW-Madison at large to defend the position of vice provost of diversity and climate and justify the utility of that office, given that it was vacant for almost a year without adversely affecting the educational quality of the university.

But Mr. Nass may have Mr. Mikalsen to blame for revealing his hand and exposing their complete ignorance on what the point of the university system is in the first place. When citing the argument that UW-Madison is an “economic engine” of the state, Mr. Mikalsen said that the university explains away the lack of viable employment for undergraduates with non-professional majors by saying they provide a liberal arts education as well. According to Mr. Mikalsen, “You can’t have it both ways!”

Wrong. The university can and should have it both ways. After all, it is primarily an institution of higher learning, and education for the sake of education isn’t exactly worthless. It may be to legislators like Mr. Nass who look for a numerical value at the end of every state action, but the value of pure education itself should not dismissed simply because it doesn’t immediately create more jobs.

Perhaps Mr. Nass doesn’t truly understand the full utility of the UW System. And maybe system administrators are overlooking a redundancy of offices and needless positions. But it’s where the two extremes represented by Messrs. Wiley and Nass agree that provides some hope for our university.

When asked how important private funding is to the future of the university, Mr. Wiley proceeded to draw a small triangular graph that he had obviously worked out before. In it, he plotted UW-Madison according to the three axes of tuition, state support and private investment. After putting the university somewhere in between all three, he makes a few plots of where UW-Madison will likely move to in two years. Then six. Eight, 16 and onward, eventually taking into account a whole century of funding change. What is clearly visible is a trend curving directly away from state funding and toward privatization.

And Mr. Nass agrees with this trajectory. To him, if they can justify the funds to private donors and those willing to make gifts, then all the better for the student and the taxpayer.

And the trend is growing among public schools. The University of Michigan, in order to be freed of its own legislative stumbling block, has considered going completely private. South Carolina gave its public colleges the option to privatize as well. While this option may not work so well for smaller schools with minor endowments, it certainly has had some role in turning Michigan into a “public Ivy.”

And perhaps this university should follow suit. But to do so, we have to commit fully in this direction. While one hopes that state funding doesn’t have a precipitous drop in the near future, it also isn’t worth it to stretch Wisconsin’s finances even thinner if we can make our own way toward financial and academic independence.

Let us hope we find that way sooner rather than later.

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Jason Smathers ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in history and journalism.