Gov. Walker’s plan to help college students not up to par with democrats in state

Four lawmakers met Friday at
UW-L to talk with staff and students

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s plans for making college affordable in Wisconsin still don’t sit well with La Crosse area lawmakers.  

Four legislators, all Democrats, met with students and staff Friday at the at Cartwright Center on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse to talk about issues affecting the university system.  Assemblyman Steve Doyle is bothered by Walker’s repeated emphasis on freezing tuition in the system.

“It feels good today,” Doyle said, “but in the long run, is something that were essentially throwing our next generation under the bus.”

Other legislators attending the forum described the tuition freeze and other measures promoted by Walker as ‘window dressing’ that does little to help students get out of loan debt. 

The lawmakers also referred to them as ‘crumbs.’ In attendance, along with Doyle, were representatives Jill Billings and Chris Danou, along with Sen. Jennifer Shilling.  

She was optimistic when she heard Walker talk about affordability, but that optimism changed quickly.

“When the governor said he was going to address this issue, I said, ‘Finally,'” Schilling remembered. “My first indicator that this wasn’t going well should have been when he showed up at UW-L in a closed meeting. Was anybody there to get to hear (what he said)? No.”

Walker has argued that the Democratic ideas have been tried in other states and didn’t work.  

Shilling says her party’s plans would help 100 percent of students, instead of about 3 percent benefiting under the Walker policy.

Schilling is pleased that Walker lowered his UW system budget cuts from a proposed $300 million, but just talking about that level hurt the chances of hiring people.

“Even having that discussion, a 300 million dollar cut, that hurt recruitment,” Schilling said. “There are people, who were looking at this campus and said, ‘What this is the direction that your state’s going, I’m going to go somewhere else.'”

Shilling argues that Democrats have a better loan plan than the Republican program, but that plan was rejected during recent votes in Madison.