Another two-year tuition freeze throughout the UW System could soon become a reality, after Gov. Scott Walker proposed the idea on April 11 in light of a projected year-end surplus.

Walker proposed the freeze at the Board of Regents meeting in River Falls and it now awaits approval. This comes following the two-year tuition freeze passed last year, which came alongside promised additional funding from the state, according to UW-Eau Claire Chancellor James Schmidt.

This time, that additional funding has not yet been promised. However, Chancellor Schmidt hopes to continue the university’s run on “best value” college lists, including the Princeton Review’s, and keeping tuition the same would help achieve that goal.

“If they want to try and keep tuition down, I applaud that, but only if they step up and provide additional appropriation,” Schmidt said. “I am a big proponent of value based education. We should try and keep costs in line. But it seems state legislators really have disinvested in public higher education and I think that’s a disservice.”

Student Body President Bryan Larson said the proposed freeze would affect UW-Eau Claire in many ways, both good and bad. One benefit would be tuition being held at its current state. But of the year-end surplus, projected to be up to $1 billion, 75 percent is already committed and 22 percent is being held, according to a news release from the UW System. This leaves 3 percent of funds without particular spending plans.

“As a student, you do have the benefit of having your tuition frozen,” Larson said. “But it does hinder our ability to roll out some new programs that would be impactful, and also expand programs that have been very successful here.”

The freeze would apply to differential tuition, according to Chancellor Schmidt, which affects the funding of programs like Blugold Commitment. While current funding has not been revoked, it would mean a freeze in the program’s expansion. Programs funded by Blugold Commitment include the Center for Writing Excellence, Eau Queer Film Festival, and the Civil Rights Pilgrimage.

“(The Blugold Commitment) really is meant to be there to be sure that students have that high quality opportunity to have the high outcomes we expect with a Blugold degree,” Schmidt said.

Larson said he worries that though the freeze may attract students, it may turn away professors. According to Chancellor Schmidt, UW-Eau Claire lags behind national peers’ salaries between 10-25 percent. He said that by freezing tuition, there’s less revenue to make pay increases that would attract and retain quality faculty staff.

“It’s going to make it harder to attract the best instructors,” Larson said. “I think we should be able to compensate our faculty fairly.”

 Student opinion is as varied as those in power throughout the UW System. Jeanine Anderson, a junior biology major at UW-Eau Claire, said she believes the freeze could benefit students who can’t afford tuition hikes while not impacting campus as much as some may worry it would.

 “I’m kind of on the line with it, but I’m more okay with it than not,” Anderson said. “Personally, I have family who are professors they haven’t voiced concerns, so I think it won’t have that big of an effect.”

 UW-Eau Claire junior Gina Warner voiced concerns that mirrored President Larson’s.

 “The idea of freezing it is nice, because everyone loves saving money, but I’m concerned about what it will take away,” Warner said.

Going forward, Chancellor Schmidt said he will work with the university and state legislators as much as possible to ensure transparency in the UW System budget so students can remain educated on where their tuition dollars go. Until then, all concerns are speculation.

“What are the implications for this next proposal? We don’t really know,” Schmidt said. “We won’t know until the legislation is actually written.”