UW-L chancellor calls tuition freeze remarkable, as system ready to vote on budget

The University of Wisconsin regents is set to meet later today in Milwaukee to set tuition and other fees for the next two years.

Part of the expected proposal is something that shocks UW-La Crosse chancellor Joe Gow.

“Pretty remarkable that we will have two more years of frozen tuition,” Gow said. “That’ll make eight years. I don’t know anywhere in the country that’s had something like that. That’s a wonderful thing for our students.”

For the past six years, Minnesota has had tuition freezes for its two-year colleges and held the universities to a cumulative increase of less than eight percent.

Gow says the freeze of tuition makes it a little more difficult to work out the requested salary increase for faculty and staff since a certain percentage must come from tuition.

“Whenever we have (a staff pay increase), a third of that has to be funded through tuition revenue,” Gow said. “So, that will be a little challenging for us if tuition doesn’t go up.”

The regents approval of a spending plan would also call for raising student fees at four-year schools an average of $33 per student, as well as room and board increasing an average of $118.

Gow says they’ve got to pay for the residence hall upgrades somehow.

“It’s really a combination of having to put more funds into newer buildings and we do have to renovate the older ones,” Gow said. “Most residents halls at UW-L were built in the 1960s.”