Budget cuts at the University of Washington

Here is the message that went out by email from University of Washington president Mark Emmert.

17 percent budget cuts over two years are tough when you can only get rid of tenure-track faculty, who are by a lot the main expense of running a university, by closing departments. I expect that the staff will take pretty severe hits and that tuition will go up by a lot. I also predict that too few administrators will be cut than is optimal.

UW is not that far below Michigan in world rankings of universities (though they have let their economics department slip since I was there as an undergraduate, they are kings in computer science, aeronautical engineering, medicine and other fields), there is no reason their tuition should not be similar to Michigan's.

As a Husky football season ticket holder, I like the bit at the end about the stadium - priorities!