Dave Cieslewicz:

  • And here’s the real kicker. Teaching staff is actually down. Madison has lost 75 tenured faculty positions since 1992, despite growing by thousands of students and adding nearly 8,000 academic staff. But that’s actually not so bad compared to most UW system schools. They have between 25% and 30% fewer faculty positions than they did 30 years ago. 

So you want to find a culprit for fast-growing tuition? Look to three things: declining taxpayer support, bloated staff and building binges. The last issue was not addressed in the Fiscal Bureau report, but it’s a real problem.