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UW System Budget
I hear the moaning every year about the UW budget. Professors will probably be forced to eat cat food in the near future if all predictions hold true.
Yet when you visit the campuses, you see a boom in building projects. At Madison, you see: A new Business School, old dorms being torn down for new "apartment like" dorms, and then when new space is opened up the old space is immediately filled. Not long ago, a new gym was put in on the east side of the campus, one was not enough.
If attendance were up, I could buy it. It has been relatively flat for years. So if budgets can't be cut, why all the construction?
Then we see it at the other campuses as well. How about a Theater Program building at Stevens Point. I hate to sound catty, but a Theater program produces kids with few employable skills, and at best are minimum wage jobs. But the show must go on....
New construction is going on at every campus in the State, which means more maintenance, more utility costs, etc. And then, as with all government agencies, the space magically fills up, with no growth in employment or students. How does that happen?
Then let's move on to majors. How many Theater majors do we need? How many Middle Ages Art majors? Perhaps we should begin the painful process of rationalizing some of our programs. I am speaking from experience here.. I have one who graduated in Theater, can't find a job that pays over $10 an hour. Another in criminal justice, again, can't find work. (100 applicants for every opening, and they don't need degrees for police work.)
I hate to sound "draconian", but we need to think what we are spending our money on. Yes we need a great University system, but we also need some thought put into what we can do with the money we have.
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