David Taintor

Chancellor Brian Levin-Stankevich, along with administrative members of his cabinet, met with students on Tuesday to discuss a wide variety of topics. One appeared to resonate more with students – tuition increase initiatives at UW-Eau Claire and how they would compare to recent initiatives at UW-Madison and UW-La Crosse.

In the final Chancellor’s Roundtable event of the academic year and the first one ever to be recorded and archived for Web broadcast, students were also given the chance to express their views on tuition increase initiatives at Eau Claire directly to the chancellor.

Stankevich said one of La Crosse’s arguments for tuition increase was their student-to-faculty ratio, which is gradually getting larger over a period of time and was not benefiting students as much as it should have been. He added Madison feels they have created bottlenecks in their degrees as a result of being unable to maintain their faculty.

In the case of Eau Claire, Stankevich said curricular bottlenecks are becoming too apparent and the student-to-faculty ratio consistently is on the rise, something he fears could hurt Eau Claire and the overall degree earned from the university in the long run.

“We are really about return on investment,” Stankevich said. “You invest your time and money to get a degree here and that has to be something four years from now that you are proud of, not hiding behind your desk, you want it hanging on a wall.”

Stankevich pointed out the price comparison between Eau Claire and other universities in the state. UW-Stout, for instance, costs roughly $1,800 more per year than Eau Claire, and Stankevich said the difficulty is that once budget cuts happen, Eau Claire is at a disadvantage. He said this is because the university would not have the extra money that schools like UW-Stout would have as a result of having their students pay higher tuitions.

Junior Brittany Doyle attended the meeting and was one student who was for tuition increases. Doyle, who attended a two-year System school that cost more in tuition than Eau Claire and spent a semester at Madison, said she hopes students are open to the idea of paying a slight tuition increase.

“I don’t know why people would not be willing to pay a little more (for the UW-Eau Claire education),” Doyle said. “Having had an education at Madison, I feel the education here is actually better . I don’t think students appreciate how cheap it is to go here.”

Stankevich also hopes that students are open to the idea of tuition increases and feels that in the future it could potentially be a good investment. He said the main thing is keeping the Eau Claire degree to the point where employers look at it and know that something positive comes with it.