UW System no Sherwood Forest

Friday, March 7, 2008 8:19 PM CST

If Robin Hood existed today, he wouldn’t go around robbing college kids.

Some University of Wisconsin regents want to bump up tuition for students from wealthier families and give the excess to those from poorer families. If they think that would somehow uphold the legend of Robin Hood, they’re more sinister than the Sheriff of Nottingham.

System President Kevin Reilly created a task force to study new ways of boosting tuition revenue. The state funds a smaller portion of UW campus budgets than it used to, and officials need to figure out how to make up that difference.

Punishing students for the success of their moms and dads is not the way to accomplish it. The proposal to set a “market rate” was among those debated at a Board of Regents meeting last week.

UW-Green Bay Chancellor Bruce Shepard was one of the voices suggesting it’d be an efficient use of dollars. Efficient for bureaucrats, maybe. Efficient for students? Hardly.

The logic behind financial aid is to level the playing field by giving students with less a hand up. Not knocking down the ones with more.

The Board of Regents does seem to understand the drawbacks of such a redistribution plan. Its report suggests one negative is it “could cause resentment or opposition to financial aid programs or future tuition increases”.

Those leaders should concentrate on other options they identified, which include higher tuition rates at bigger campuses or for specific programs. It’s reasonable to think facilities for engineering schools can cost more to maintain, or that more prestigious faculty at UW-Madison may draw higher pay.

We can imagine no justification for charging one kid a standard tuition rate and his roommate who attends the same school a preferred rate. What if the one from the better financial background decides to work his own way through school?

Once they graduate to the work force, they’ll quickly become acquainted with those who patrol the modern Sherwood Forest. The IRS and others will be happy to introduce them to the progressive tax system.

At least let students ride out from the same point, rather than forcing some to play catch-up because their parents managed to get ahead.

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