Charge It Forward

By Keith Schmitz

Bruce Murphy on his news blog lays out the issue:

Here are the percentages by which UW-Milwaukee raised tuition over the last 10 years: 5.5, 6.8, 6.9, 15.8, 18.7, 8, 0, 6.9 and 4.9. Other UW system schools had similar increases. Small wonder that students are leaving with huge debts. This amounts to a massive tax shift to the next generation, yet no politician ever seems to oppose it.

One indeed wonders why.

Many families and young people are shouldering huge financial burdens to grab for the American dream. No wonder so many 20 year olds are getting politically active.

According to a recent poll, albeit by the University of Wisconsin political science department, 81% of respondents had a favorable regard of the UW system and 54% we strongly favorable. Ice cream isn't this popular. Most people recognize the worth of investing in the future.

Here is where our state politicians lack common sense and guts. Though our state legislature does have members with real or imaginary grudges against the UW system, it all comes down to allocation of money.

And Wisconsin seems to spend a lot of it on our corrections system, more per capita than many states.

Here's a fantasy. How about our lawmakers taking a good hard look at our prison system and finding ways we could use less of it. Other states such as Kansas are finding ways of keeping their residents out of the clink. Sure many of our lawmakers would come up against a lot of bone headed advertising about how they are soft on crime, but at some point incarcerations are cutting off our noses to spite our collective faces.

Sure we want to make sure crime doesn't pay, it doesn't have to translate into the same outcome for the rest of the population that wants to get a higher education.