Members of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Student Association traveled to Madison last week to speak in opposition to the proposed Taxpayers Protection Amendment, saying that if the amendment passed, it would significantly increase tuition.

Alicia Bagley, SA communications director, said that she and two other members of the SA, including President Russ Rueden, traveled to Madison to speak during a public hearing on the amendment. Bagley was the only one to speak before the panel, she said.

Bagley said at the hearing that if the amendment passed, it would raise tuition by more than 50 percent next year and that she would not be able to continue her education at UWM.

“I wouldn’t be able to go to school anymore,” Bagley said.

She said that the SA’s stance is against the amendment.

“There were more speakers against it than for it,” Bagley said of the hearing.

The Board of Regents, at a special March meeting, approved a resolution opposing the proposed constitutional amendment. The amendment would put limits on how much state and local governments can collect.

In the resolution, the regents said that the proposed amendment would force increased tuition and student enrollment caps, decrease citizen access to UW Extension services and limit access to the two-year UW Colleges, hurt the state’s ability to receive federal funds that would support research and inhibit increasing the number of citizens with four-year degrees.

An analysis by a UW-Madison La Follette School of Public Affairs professor showed that the UW System would have received $200 million less over the last 10 years if the amendment had been in effect in that time.

Freda Harris, UW System associate vice president for budget and planning, said that if the amendment were in effect, the system would be $42 million short for 2007-’08, leaving the regents to decide whether to increase the tuition by more than 11 percent to recover the funding, reduce enrollments, or both.

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