Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a possible contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, has proposed reducing his state's public university system budget of $6 billion by 2.5 percent.
Critics say the reduction, which would slash funding at the University of Wisconsin by some 13 percent — or $300 million — over the next two years, is politically motivated,
The Washington Post reported.
Walker supporters say changing how much the state spends on public education is a matter of philosophy and is preferable to raising taxes or piecemeal spending cuts.
"For years administrators at the University of Wisconsin have said that getting out from under the bureaucracy of state government would allow them to achieve considerable savings in areas like purchasing, construction and hiring," said Walker spokeswoman Laurel Patrick, the Post reported.
Walker gained national attention in 2011 by corralling the collective bargaining powers of public-sector unions. "It's very much like what we did four years ago," he said of his current campaign for a higher education makeover.
The governor also said that he wanted what was best for higher education, noting that his own son was attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The move could resonate among conservative primary voters who think of universities as bastions of liberal-left activism, the Post reported.
Opponents of budget cuts at the University of Wisconsin say that they can tap in to a base of university friends across the political spectrum, from students and teachers to the university's 400,000 alums around the world.
The school said that
the cut would actually reduce money available for instruction, student advising, and programming by 25 percent.
State higher education officials say that the cuts could force staff reductions across the state's 13 four-year schools and 13 two-year schools, and result in higher tuition bills for out-of-state students.
University system President Ray Cross had been pushing for a $95 million increase in funding.
"We are going to be a dramatically different organization at the end of this," Cross told the Post.
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