UW-La Crosse chancellor: Time will come where tuition freeze won’t be feasible

The University of Wisconsin System is requesting an extra $107 million in funding for the next budget.

Much of the money is tied to performance based metrics, which UW-La Crosse chancellor Joe Gow welcomes.

The budget request would cover 2019-2021.

Within it are several building projects at UW-L Gow says are a long time coming.

“Three much needed facilities on our campus are in our budget request,” Gow said. “Second phase of our new science building, a field house that our students voted on some years ago and then a new residence hall.”

System leaders argued in documents supplied to the regents that the request is justified given the ongoing tuition freeze and a decade of declining state aid. 

No proposal for increases in student fees or tuition were included in the request, since student fees at four-year schools were raised $33 and room-and-board $118 in June.

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers have frozen in-state undergraduate tuition the last six years — something Walker said he wants to continue for another four years.

UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow says a time will come where a tuition freeze won’t be feasible.

“For us, that does create some challenges as far as how we pay for what we do,” Gow said. “We do have inflationary cost increases. I don’t know how realistic it is to continue that forever.”