UW Block Grant Budget Amendment

[ragtimejoe1]

Flip the conversation. UW receives a greater percentage of its budget from the state than peer institutions (I think). Should WY taxpayers be forced to give UW all that money with no input? Just shut up and give us money. We'll tell you what's good for you. Steep declines in enrollment while spending, what, 440-50k/student/year, maybe indicates there are problems.

Perhaps declining enrollment indicates the university isn't appealing or providing service to WY citizens?

100% speculation but I'm sure there is a "non-university" side to this not necessarily based on far right beliefs.

Wyoming is facing an enrollment issue no doubt. I don’t see how the legislature’s recent moves do anything to assist with that.

I’d say it’s a misnomer to suggest that Wyoming taxpayers foot a larger portion of the university bill than our peer institutions. The vast majority of State funding for the University comes from mineral revenues on federal and state school lands (royalties and severance taxes). Without compiling the data, I’d say that we are fortunate in Wyoming that a relatively small portion of our personal taxes go to the University.

Could that money not be used elsewhere?

The declining enrollment is likely a symptom of large issues.

[OrediggerPoke]

Wyoming is facing an enrollment issue no doubt. I don’t see how the legislature’s recent moves do anything to assist with that.

I’d say it’s a misnomer to suggest that Wyoming taxpayers foot a larger portion of the university bill than our peer institutions. The vast majority of State funding for the University comes from mineral revenues on federal and state school lands (royalties and severance taxes). Without compiling the data, I’d say that we are fortunate in Wyoming that a relatively small portion of our personal taxes go to the University.

Could that money not be used elsewhere?

The declining enrollment is likely a symptom of large issues.

A lot of it cannot be used for purposes other than to fund the ‘common schools.’ This was the agreement Wyoming made when it became a state and the federal government granted 2 sections of land on each township to the State.

[ragtimejoe1]

Could that money not be used elsewhere?

The declining enrollment is likely a symptom of large issues.

A lot of it cannot be used for purposes other than to fund the ‘common schools.’ This was the agreement Wyoming made when it became a state and the federal government granted 2 sections of land on each township to the State.

Is UW the only common school and what percentage of UW's funds are designated as such? If it can only can be used at UW, then this threat from the legislature is relatively toothless.

The declining enrollment may be a symptom of a university that lost connection with the base they serve.

[OrediggerPoke]

A lot of it cannot be used for purposes other than to fund the ‘common schools.’ This was the agreement Wyoming made when it became a state and the federal government granted 2 sections of land on each township to the State.

Is UW the only common school and what percentage of UW's funds are designated as such? If it can only can be used at UW, then this threat from the legislature is relatively toothless.

The declining enrollment may be a symptom of a university that lost connection with the base they serve.

100% of Morrill Land Grant funds generated from certain applicable lands must be dedicated to the University.

In addition, Article 7, Section 16 of the Wyoming Constitution requires the cost of instruction at the University ‘be nearly free as possible.’

[Brew_Poke]

How many students is that? 5? 10? Not being a jerk but from a practical standpoint, I doubt lack of women's studies impacts UW that much. Most likely those that are interested in Women's Studies AND UW will just pick another major. I might be wrong but I seriously doubt UW was pulling a lot of students solely for the Women's Studies program.

My bigger concern is the impact on recruiting faculty. It's Women's Studies today. It might be Geology, Chemistry, Biology or Atmospheric Science tomorrow if they deign to study anything that might touch on climate change. It might be the law school - as it was when I was in Law School - if a professor questions livestock grazing practices on federal land. It's the slippery slope of restricting thought. Frankly, if you want to cut funding for the WS department - fine. But they did much more than that. They said that even if UW brings in 100% outside money to fund the department, they can't. The WS amendment is clear that any funding of a WS program (no matter the source of funds) means UW loses all state funding.

Pairing the WS amendment with the idea of having the WY Legislature being able to line item anything they want on a whim by doing away with the block grant form of funding makes it 100x worse. Again, what whizbang Tier 1 prof is going to come here if they risk getting whacked because they might be a little controversial? Are we that scared of new ideas and different thoughts that we can't even have people discuss certain topics? Censorship and limiting academic freedom is the refuge of the weak. If your ideas are so gall-derned superior, what are you afraid of?

Agree with all this. We'll be BYU.

[Itsux2beaewe]

Woman’s Studies was because of gender inequality. Correct? We are so far past that today. It’s the same we saw with affirmative action, which the SCOTUS agreed we disenfranchised others, namely Asians. We go so far overboard anymore, somehow believing if we go way overboard we can fix history. We can’t fix history. Hitler was an evil person, slavery was wrong - no matter how many statues we tear down guess what. It’s still history. I have no doubt WS will lead to include men who want to be woman, who the libs say can get pregnant. Promise me it won’t swing to crazy levels and I’m fine with WS. Unfortunately we’ all know where it leads. From my view just like affirmative action “diversity and inclusion” seldom works out well, and actually has an opposite effect, because again we go overboard.

From the article;

Women's and gender studies gives colleges the opportunity to embrace diversity and inclusion.

Women's studies grew out of a lack of gender equality in higher education and society.

Consider the situation for women in the 1960s, before the first women's studies program. Women could not open a bank account without a male cosigner. And some states still banned women from serving on juries.

Furthermore, several Ivy League institutions still refused to admit women. Columbia did not admit its first female undergrads until 1983.

The first women admitted to exclusively male institutions often faced harsh conditions. In 1969, Yale University announced that it would admit women for the first time. One of the first female students at Yale asked a history professor if he might offer a women's history course. He responded, "That would be like teaching the history of dogs."

https://www.bestcolleges.com/humanities ... -programs/

[Brew_Poke]

Anything with "studies" in its name should be immediately cut. They're money pit sinkholes that produce nothing of value unless you're super stoked about learning "math is racist"

Will you be breaking it to the Air Force ROTC cadets in Aerospace Studies?

[TheRealUW]

This is a really complex topic, but I'm glad people are discussing it. I'm so tired of anything remotely controversial being label "political" and then being banned from being talked about. That idea seems to be grounded in the idea that people are just too dumb to discuss anything rationally anymore. If that is a correct assumption, then that is a very bad sign and does not speak well at all to where we are headed as a community, country, world, species, etc. I sincerely hope that assumption is not the truth.

My two cents...we've begun to confuse equal opportunity with equal outcome. Almost all arguments for inequalities that exist in the US use outcome measures to support their argument. If the goal is equalize outcomes, there are a limitless number of groups we can put people into to try to equalize across. Currently, we focus a lot on race and gender, but one could easily argue that it is just as important to equalize outcomes across hair color, height, weight, shoe size, speed of fingernail growth...you get the point, you cannot possibly equalize outcomes for every single group that people can be categorized into. It's a losing battle that is wasting a lot of time and resources.

[ragtimejoe1]

Is UW the only common school and what percentage of UW's funds are designated as such? If it can only can be used at UW, then this threat from the legislature is relatively toothless.

The declining enrollment may be a symptom of a university that lost connection with the base they serve.

100% of Morrill Land Grant funds generated from certain applicable lands must be dedicated to the University.

In addition, Article 7, Section 16 of the Wyoming Constitution requires the cost of instruction at the University ‘be nearly free as possible.’

So then the legislature can't do anything anyway? Why worry about it then?

[OrediggerPoke]

100% of Morrill Land Grant funds generated from certain applicable lands must be dedicated to the University.

In addition, Article 7, Section 16 of the Wyoming Constitution requires the cost of instruction at the University ‘be nearly free as possible.’

So then the legislature can't do anything anyway? Why worry about it then?

They just did. They appointed themselves head of curriculum and regulators of speech for the University.

The legislature also controls the federal royalties (which is all of our coal production) and all severance tax dollars to spend (or not spend) at their Will

[ragtimejoe1]

So then the legislature can't do anything anyway? Why worry about it then?

They just did. They appointed themselves head of curriculum and regulators of speech for the University.

The legislature also controls the federal royalties (which is all of our coal production) and all severance tax dollars to spend (or not spend) at their Will

Didn't you just say most of UW's money is from sources that aren't taxpayers and the money has to be spent at UW?

If that's the case, what funding is the legislature threatening?

[OrediggerPoke]

They just did. They appointed themselves head of curriculum and regulators of speech for the University.

The legislature also controls the federal royalties (which is all of our coal production) and all severance tax dollars to spend (or not spend) at their Will

Didn't you just say most of UW's money is from sources that aren't taxpayers and the money has to be spent at UW?

If that's the case, what funding is the legislature threatening?

Most of UW’s money is not from individual taxpayers. It’s from a combination of school lands, mineral royalties and mineral severance taxes.

The legislature cannot legally redirect Morrill Act funds. The legislature is free to spend mineral royalties not associated with school lands and severance taxes how it deems fit. This includes basically all coal royalties and taxes.

[ragtimejoe1]

Didn't you just say most of UW's money is from sources that aren't taxpayers and the money has to be spent at UW?

If that's the case, what funding is the legislature threatening?

Most of UW’s money is not from individual taxpayers. It’s from a combination of school lands, mineral royalties and mineral severance taxes.

The legislature cannot legally redirect Morrill Act funds. The legislature is free to spend mineral royalties not associated with school lands and severance taxes how it deems fit. This includes basically all coal royalties and taxes.

What % of UW budget is untouchable or cannot be redirected to other expenditures?

[OrediggerPoke]

Most of UW’s money is not from individual taxpayers. It’s from a combination of school lands, mineral royalties and mineral severance taxes.

The legislature cannot legally redirect Morrill Act funds. The legislature is free to spend mineral royalties not associated with school lands and severance taxes how it deems fit. This includes basically all coal royalties and taxes.

What % of UW budget is untouchable or cannot be redirected to other expenditures?

I don’t have the accounting from Office of State Lands
and Investments. Pure guess is roughly around 30% of funds from Morrill Act lands.

I’d argue that the constitutional provision must limit the legislature’s abilities. But the legislature would argue it can do what it wants.

[ragtimejoe1]

What % of UW budget is untouchable or cannot be redirected to other expenditures?

I don’t have the accounting from Office of State Lands
and Investments. Pure guess is roughly around 30% of funds from Morrill Act lands.

I’d argue that the constitutional provision must limit the legislature’s abilities. But the legislature would argue it can do what it wants.

If some portion of the funds can be spent elsewhere and relieve some tax burden on the citizens, then it indirectly is a tax on the citizens which gives them a bit of a say in my opinion.

Either way, I seriously doubt it makes much of an impact. Although, I fully expect the downward trend in enrollment to continue and undoubtedly, in a few years, someone will point to this as a reason for the declining enrollment which of course will be nonsense.

[OrediggerPoke]

UW releases working group report today on legislature’s ‘DEI’ budget pronouncement:

https://www.uwyo.edu/newssupport/newshi ... -final.pdf

[Itsux2beaewe]

Wyoming should follow Texas and Floridas lead.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -positions

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/12/28 ... versities/