The General Electric University: Not Wisconsin’s Brightest Idea
http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2013/08/general-electric-university-not-wisconsins-brightest-idea
How can a public university sustain its public mission when state funding dwindles to nothing? It’s not just an idle question. By 2059, based on current national trends, average state fiscal support for higher education will reach zero.
State aid to public universities has declined 40 percent over the past three decades. And in response to the recent economic downturns, state governments have only deepened the cuts. For the second biennial budget in a row, Governor Scott Walker has cut funds for the University of Wisconsin, where I work—this time by nearly $33 million for the next two years.
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Nearly two-thirds of corporations in Wisconsin pay zero dollars in income taxes—and the number is rising. Over the next four years, the corporate income tax rate will drop from 7.9 percent to 0.4 percent, thanks to Walker’s recent tax cuts. Some corporations—such as Immelt’s General Electric—earn high profits, pay nothing in income taxes, and earn state tax credits. In 2008, the state gave up $254 million in corporate tax breaks to all corporations—while GE earned $17.4 billion in profits nationally. The company, which employs 6,500 people in Wisconsin, paid $0 Wisconsin corporate income tax from 2000 to 2008. GE is notorious for dodging federal taxes, too, and its unionized employees are fighting a wave of plant closings. What a role model for public universities to emulate!
Corporations turn to the university to prepare their workers and to innovate their products—but they decline to fund the public system they depend on. And neither university nor state administrators are demanding fair tax policies that would yield enough money to keep UW going. Instead, they are restructuring the university to fit corporate needs even more closely.
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