"How Scott Walker's Budget Cuts would Devastate Wisconsin state Universities"
Written by a graduate student in Communication at UW Madison. Just as a note, UW Madison, since the 1960's, has had one of the best Communication graduate programs in the country.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/02/04/how-scott-walkers-budget-cuts-would-devastate-wisconsin-state-universities/
The claim is that there is slack in the budget, but we graduate students don’t see it. We provide teaching and other support across campus, but few of us take home more than $15,000 per year. Day-to-day life for graduate students on campus is already defined by working around budget-imposed constraints. It’s little stuff, like 40 of us having to stretch a single printer cartridge for an entire semester. Or using office chairs that have been broken for 10 years.
Those little indignities are part of the charm of grad school. At least compared to what’s coming. I expect that some of our advisers will retire to try to help their departments absorb reductions. Some will just leave, taking their expertise and grant money with them. The advisees they leave behind will either try to follow or scramble for support. It will be ugly.
Apart from the absurdity and cruelty of these cuts, there will be very real effects on the UW system in terms of faculty recruiting and retention. Scott Walker might think it's funny to disrespect the faculty, and might even imagine that they have nowhere else to go. He's wrong. The worst case scenario for the UW system is the severe drain of faculty expertise, and the inability to recruit top new faculty into the system. Indeed, it may already be too late to prevent that without a drastic change of course by the legislature and Trustees, both of which groups are Walker toadies. By 2017, all of the UW appointed trustees will be Walker appointees. Anyone who can will get out while the getting's good.
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