UW System: Tuition hikes moderate in relation to steep budget cuts

The UW System Board of Regents meets later this week in Madison to review an operating budget and consider new tuition rates for the 2011-12 academic year. For the fifth consecutive year, UW System President Kevin Reilly has proposed a 5.5% average tuition increase for resident undergraduates at the four-year campuses.  New this year is a proposal to mirror that increase at the 13 freshman-sophomore UW Colleges, which haven’t had an increase in nearly five years. The UW System news release notes the proposal would generate approximately $37 million in additional revenue for the coming year, which will cover less than one third of the $125 million in budget cuts that UW System universities and colleges must make in the first fiscal year of the 2011-13 biennium. (Please note: Monday’s announcement does not include the segregated fee portion of the typical student bill, which is set at the local level and varies by campus. We’ll release the “grand total” for UW-Green Bay later this week.) Meanwhile: www.wisconsin.edu/news/2011/r110711.htm