Agreed, rjk. Time shall tell. And there have been times where I wished Wisconsin would have adopted more closely Michigan’s tuition / infrastructure model, if only to insulate W. more from outside interference. And I say this being an alum of the most expensive Big Ten institution as well.
There was a thread going for a while based on the proposal’s mission language changes (plus related issues), and the subsequent retraction within 24 hours. The thread has since petered out, not least because there has been so much resistance, reversals, etc. While ugly for the state, UW may still weather the storm OK.
*edited to add that it is an innate, and stubborn Wisconsinite trait that insists upon modesty over “elitism”; tuition rates and other practices are affected respectively. In my experience, Iowans also seem to exhibit this modesty.