The Atlantic featured the expertise of UW-Madison’s Nicholas Hillman in an article headlined, “Higher education has become a partisan issue: And university budgets are suffering as a result.”
Hillman is an associate professor with the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis (ELPA), and the director of UW-Madison’s Student Success Through Applied Research (SSTAR) Lab. He is also a faculty affiliate of the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education (WISCAPE).
Much of Hillman’s research centers on the topic of educational equity and looking at ways to give more people a fair shot at both accessing, and succeeding in, college. Hillman inspects these issues through a financial lens.
The Atlantic article is in response to a 41 percent budget decrease at the University of Alaska system, where Gov. Mike Dunleavy has announced cuts of $130 million from the school’s budget, following a previous $5 million cut. According to The Atlantic, roughly 1,300 faculty and staff jobs could be lost as a result of the funding cut.
Reports The Atlantic: “The scramble playing out in Alaska represents the worst-case scenario for public colleges. It has not been uncommon to see significant cuts by states to higher-education funding — particularly during economic slowdowns — but ‘it is uncommon to do it in one fell swoop,’ Nick Hillman, an associate professor of higher education at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told (The Atlantic staff reporter Adam Harris). Alaska had a deficit, and the governor had promised not to raise taxes to deal with it, so he chose a favored punching bag to take the hit instead: higher education.”
Although The Atlantic terms this situation as an extreme case, the report also warns that these results are one possible fate for public colleges in an age of mistrust and increased political partisanship.
Read The Atlantic article here.