UW System Regents are expected to approve a 5.5 percent tuition hike today. But they won’t be doing so willingly, according to Regent Tom Loftus. “We’ve got no choice,” he said. “Really, the budget is quite a disastrous cut to the university system, even with a five and-a-half percent tuition increase, it will wreak havoc in what has to be cut at each campus.”
The University system is taking a $250 million dollar hit under the Republican budget that took effect July 1st. “Mostly what the university has to cut its expenses in one way, and that’s with personnel,” said Loftus. “I think you can expect layoffs, furloughs, people not being hired, things like that. We’re at a record level, historically, of 180,000 students, and we really can’t turn them away, so we’ll do what it takes.”
John Colbert, WIBA
