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March 15, 2002
Re: University of Wisconsin System Admissions Freeze
Please understand that
our goal is to lift the admissions freeze, admit every qualified student and
provide him or her with a high quality undergraduate education. We are doing our
best to convince state legislators that it is in everyone’s interests to
educate our young people. But we need adequate state funding to do so.
We want you to know that the UW Board of
Regents is NOT playing a political game with admissions. The UW Board of
Regents took the only prudent action available in the face of:
- Potential budget cuts totaling $108 million, nearly one-eighth of our $882
million state-funded operating budget;
- Strict
limits imposed by the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee on the amount
of money the UW could collect from tuition to offset those deep state budget
cuts;
- Growing
demand for admissions. New freshmen applications are 10 percent ahead of
last year, and we have already admitted 2,624 more freshman than we
had a year ago at this time.
Certainly, each
student who is admitted and enrolls at a UW campus has the right to expect
reasonable access to courses and the ability to complete a course of study in a
timely fashion. Without adequate state funding, we cannot make that guarantee to
everyone currently seeking admission.
The regents and UW System President Katharine C. Lyall
are monitoring the situation on a daily basis in the hope that they can lift
this admissions freeze very soon. But the UW needs assurances that state
policymakers will find the resources to allow us to resume normal operations.
Please bear with us!
Contact: Erik Christianson
(608) 262-5061
echristianson@uwsa.edu
News Bureau
UW-Eau Claire News Bureau
Schofield 201
(715) 836-4741
newsbur@uwec.edu
Updated: March 15, 2002
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