MADISON Wis.
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse is backing off a controversial plan to increase diversity and financial aid by raising all students’ tuition, the school’s chancellor said Tuesday.
Chancellor Joe Gow said he would still seek a tuition increase but will use the money to improve quality rather than add diversity to the overwhelmingly white and increasingly well-off student body.
The university will use the increase to add at least 500 students and dozens of professors to reduce class sizes, which are the highest in the UW System, Gow said.
His latest proposal comes days after state lawmakers rejected a plan to increase tuition by $1,320 over three years. University leaders had pitched that tuition hike as a way to expand and increase diversity without using tax dollars.
The proposal called for adding 1,000 students, with half of them from low-income families or minorities. The higher tuition would have been used to increase financial aid and need-based scholarships and boost efforts to recruit minorities.
Some Republican critics dubbed the plan “a tuition hike for diversity.” Democrats, meanwhile, said it made no sense to try to improve access by raising tuition. Both sides worried the increase would hurt middle-class families.
