This time it is Wisconsin, but every public college is increasingly experiencing these struggles. If this cost cutting continues, the gap between the quality of education at public and private institutions is only going to grow, one budget cut at a time. That is unfortunate.
I continue to think that for the top public, research universities like Wisconsin, it could make a lot of sense to develop a plan to build the endowment and gradually convert to a private institution over time, so they are no longer controlled by the whims of government officials.