Wis. budget gets $500M anticipated revenue boost

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Wisconsin's budget surplus grew by $500 million Thursday, leading to a bipartisan call by state lawmakers and Gov. Scott Walker to put some of the money toward public schools two years after funding was cut by more than $1 billion.

Beyond schools, though, lawmakers and Walker disagreed on the best way to use the surplus reported by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau. Republicans said they were committed to cutting taxes, putting money in reserves, and reducing the amount of bonding used for roads projects. Democrats called for investing more in worker training, but didn't endorse deeper tax cuts.

The numbers put Walker and the Legislature in unfamiliar territory. When the governor took office two years ago, the state was facing a $3.6 billion shortfall.

Even with the new, positive budget news, the Republican co-chairs of the committee in charge of coming up with a spending plan urged caution.

"We have to take a deep breath," said Republican Sen. Alberta Darling. She likened the news to winning the lottery, but said the wise course was not to spend the money immediately and instead come up with a responsible plan.

"It's good news today but it doesn't mean we're going to celebrate and go on a spending binge," Darling said at a news conference. "We're not going to be spending it willy-nilly."

Still, the positive news set off a feeding frenzy of sorts in the Capitol, as Republicans and Democrats staked out positions on how the money should be used.

Walker said he was committed to increasing funding for schools, cutting taxes and putting money in reserves.

"(The) surplus is good news for the state of Wisconsin," he said in a statement.

Walker came into office intent on cutting into the $3.6 billion shortfall, starting in 2011 with his proposal that forced public workers to pay more for their pension and health care benefits while also effectively ending their ability to collectively bargain.

He survived the resulting 2012 recall effort, and argued that move and other deep cuts to public education and University of Wisconsin funding were necessary given the gravity of the state's budget.

Now, faced with an unexpectedly large surplus, Republicans and Democrats are calling for the restoration of some of the cuts to K-12 schools and elimination of Walker's proposed spending freeze.

"We must put the $500 million back into our neighborhood, public schools to provide future generations with the best education possible to compete in a 21st century economy," said Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chris Larson.

There was no agreement on how much school spending should be allowed to increase. Assembly Republican leaders said in a joint statement Thursday that they would support a $100 per-student spending increase. Senate Republican leaders have called for as much as a $200 per-student increase.

Democratic Sen. Jennifer Shilling, a member of the budget committee, called for a $275 per-student increase. The Wisconsin Association of School Boards backed a $200 per-student increase.

"The $200 increase corresponds with historical increases based on the annual inflation rate," said John Ashley, executive director of the group.

Walker's budget released in February did not allow for increased school spending, and he didn't comment Thursday on what level of spending, if any, he would support.

Walker has only said he would support higher state aid to schools. But if schools aren't allowed to spend that aid, the money instead goes to lowering property taxes. In his statement Thursday, he reiterated his support for keeping property taxes down.

Walker proposed continuing freezing spending increases for public schools over the next two years at the same time he called for increasing the amount of private school vouchers and expanding them to nine additional cities. That plan has met with resistance from Senate Republicans, as well as Democrats and public education supporters.

Walker and Republican lawmakers also called for cutting taxes more than Walker originally proposed in light of the surplus. Walker called for a $343 million cut, netting the average taxpayer about $83 a year.

"Our promise is to give Wisconsin taxpayers the largest possible income tax cut that we can afford," Rep. Dale Kooyenga, R-Brookfield, said. "The revenue numbers released today put us one step closer to accomplishing that goal."

The rosier revenue projection was driven primarily by unexpected strength in individual income tax collections since January, according to the memo from Fiscal Bureau director Bob Lang.

The Joint Finance Committee is in the middle of its process of taking votes on Walker's budget plan and expects to complete its work by early June. The budget must be passed in identical form by both the GOP-controlled Senate and Assembly before being signed by Walker.

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Bill would boost private-college Cal Grant awards

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Students at some private colleges and trade schools could receive more state grant money under one of several financial aid measures that passed a legislative committee Tuesday.

The Assembly Higher Education Committee approved a bill to restore the maximum Cal Grant award to $9,708. The amounts students could receive from the financial aid program were reduced in last year's state budget.

Grants to students at certain private, for-profit colleges were cut to $4,000 for the upcoming year. Students at private, nonprofit colleges saw a smaller decrease to $9,084 this fall and $8,056 next year.

The Republican-sponsored bill from Assemblywoman Beth Gaines, of Rocklin, and Assemblyman Mike Morrell, of Rancho Cucamonga, would increase the maximum grants beginning with the 2013-14 school year.

Supporters said their measure, AB1085, will prevent students from dropping out or transferring to public institutions.

"We need to keep college affordable so students can obtain a college degree and succeed in whatever career path they choose," Gaines said in a news release.

During the 2012-13 school year, about 269,000 higher education students in California received Cal Grant awards totaling $1.6 billion, according to legislative staff. The grants cover four years of full tuition at public universities and pay partial tuition costs at other colleges.

The bill would not alter standards approved last year preventing students from using Cal Grants at institutions with low graduation and high loan default rates.

Other bills approved by the committee Tuesday would give high-school graduates an additional two years to apply for a Cal Grant and prevent students whose income rises during their enrollment from becoming ineligible for future grants.

Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, said the number of Cal Grant bills shows that the program needs updating.

"Evidently, there are a lot of things that are not working," she said.

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Colleges track former students to boost degrees

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Carmen Ricotta knows being a college graduate could mean higher pay and better job opportunities, and it's not like St. Louis Community College hasn't been practically begging her to wrap up her two-year degree.

The school has been calling and emailing the 28-year-old electrician's apprentice to get her to return and complete her final assignment: an exit exam. But life has gotten in the way and Ricotta has been too busy to make the 30-minute trip from her suburban home near Fenton to the downtown St. Louis campus.

St. Louis Community College is among 60-plus schools in six states taking what seems like an obvious but little-used step to boost college graduation rates: scouring campus databases to track down former students who unknowingly qualify for degrees.

That effort, known as Project Win-Win, has helped community colleges and four-year schools in Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia and Wisconsin find hundreds of ex-students who have either earned enough credits to receive associate degrees or are just a few classes shy of getting them.

Backed by financial support from the Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation for Education, the pilot project began several years ago with 35 colleges in six states. As it winds down, some participating schools plan to continue the effort on their own.

Ricotta said at this point, she's not sure if getting her two-year degree is all that necessary.

"It's a pain," she said. "I don't feel like going down to the college to take a test I don't need. Yeah, I don't have the degree, but I still took all the classes."

Her seeming indifference to retroactively obtaining her degree points to just one of the challenges facing two-year schools in particular as they strive to fulfill President Barack Obama's challenge of raising college completion rates to 60 percent by 2020: convincing not just the public, but even some of their students, of the value of an associate's degree.

At central Missouri's Columbia College, the hunt for students on the verge of graduating worked so well that the school plans to broaden its efforts to find bachelor's degree candidates who are just one class shy of donning the cap and gown. The private liberal arts college has already awarded nearly 300 retroactive degrees, including one given posthumously to the mother of a deceased former student. Another two dozen students returned to campus to finish up after hearing from the school.

"If this was being done nationwide, it could make a difference," said Tery Donelson, Columbia College's assistant vice president for enrollment management.

Like his counterparts in St. Louis, Donelson and his team of transcript detectives also encountered skepticism, if not outright disbelief, from some of the prospective degree awardees.

"If you received a letter saying, 'Congratulations, you've earned a degree,' what would you be thinking?" he said. "That this is a scam. We had to get beyond them.

"We told them they earned a degree, and all they had to do was acknowledge it," Donelson continued. "We didn't want to send a degree to anybody who didn't want it."

Participating schools pared down their initial lists by eliminating students who received degrees elsewhere or were currently enrolled. Expired addresses or disconnected phone numbers eliminated many more.

The Institute for Higher Education Policy, which oversaw the project, initially estimated a potential increase of 25,000 new degrees if its efforts took hold nationwide. But most schools found the exercise more difficult than expected, said Cliff Adelman, a senior associate with the Washington-based policy group.

"It ain't as easy as you think," he said. "You can't use a magic wand and have this kind of thing happen."

In Oregon, a review of more than 6,000 students' academic records at the state's 17 community colleges found 109 degree-eligible students and another 905 who might qualify. Virginia's Tidewater Community College awarded 34 degrees and convinced 15 more students to return to campus from its initial pool of 651 prospects.

Four-year schools could follow the lead of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, which used the program to connect with dropouts who might still be interested in a two-year diploma. Or they could link up with neighboring community colleges in what are known as "reverse transfer" agreements.

Those agreements allow students to receive their associate's degrees if they earned enough credits toward them but didn't actually obtain them before heading to a four-year school. The two-year schools, in turn, can boost their completion rates — a critical measure for accrediting agencies and lawmakers looking for results.

One student happy to hear about what amounts to a free degree is Corey Manuel, 34, an Air Force veteran who expects to receive a bachelor's degree in management information systems from Columbia College. He took his classes at a Denver-area branch campus.

Manuel said his educational journey includes nearly 200 credits from five different schools, including a one-year stint straight out of high school playing basketball at Missouri Valley College in Marshall, Mo., and a pair of stops at Louisiana State University's community college in Eunice.

Now an information technology manager at defense contractor Raytheon, Manuel nonetheless still craves the credential he was too busy to pick up along the way.

"I wanted to make sure I had that box checked," he said.

___

Alan Scher Zagier can be reached at http://twitter.com/azagier

View the original article here

Colleges track former students to boost degrees

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Carmen Ricotta knows being a college graduate could mean higher pay and better job opportunities, and it's not like St. Louis Community College hasn't been practically begging her to wrap up her two-year degree.

The school has been calling and emailing the 28-year-old electrician's apprentice to get her to return and complete her final assignment: an exit exam. But life has gotten in the way and Ricotta has been too busy to make the 30-minute trip from her suburban home near Fenton to the downtown St. Louis campus.

St. Louis Community College is among 60-plus schools in six states taking what seems like an obvious but little-used step to boost college graduation rates: scouring campus databases to track down former students who unknowingly qualify for degrees.

That effort, known as Project Win-Win, has helped community colleges and four-year schools in Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia and Wisconsin find hundreds of ex-students who have either earned enough credits to receive associate degrees or are just a few classes shy of getting them.

Backed by financial support from the Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation for Education, the pilot project began several years ago with 35 colleges in six states. As it winds down, some participating schools plan to continue the effort on their own.

Ricotta said at this point, she's not sure if getting her two-year degree is all that necessary.

"It's a pain," she said. "I don't feel like going down to the college to take a test I don't need. Yeah, I don't have the degree, but I still took all the classes."

Her seeming indifference to retroactively obtaining her degree points to just one of the challenges facing two-year schools in particular as they strive to fulfill President Barack Obama's challenge of raising college completion rates to 60 percent by 2020: convincing not just the public, but even some of their students, of the value of an associate's degree.

At central Missouri's Columbia College, the hunt for students on the verge of graduating worked so well that the school plans to broaden its efforts to find bachelor's degree candidates who are just one class shy of donning the cap and gown. The private liberal arts college has already awarded nearly 300 retroactive degrees, including one given posthumously to the mother of a deceased former student. Another two dozen students returned to campus to finish up after hearing from the school.

"If this was being done nationwide, it could make a difference," said Tery Donelson, Columbia College's assistant vice president for enrollment management.

Like his counterparts in St. Louis, Donelson and his team of transcript detectives also encountered skepticism, if not outright disbelief, from some of the prospective degree awardees.

"If you received a letter saying, 'Congratulations, you've earned a degree,' what would you be thinking?" he said. "That this is a scam. We had to get beyond them.

"We told them they earned a degree, and all they had to do was acknowledge it," Donelson continued. "We didn't want to send a degree to anybody who didn't want it."

Participating schools pared down their initial lists by eliminating students who received degrees elsewhere or were currently enrolled. Expired addresses or disconnected phone numbers eliminated many more.

The Institute for Higher Education Policy, which oversaw the project, initially estimated a potential increase of 25,000 new degrees if its efforts took hold nationwide. But most schools found the exercise more difficult than expected, said Cliff Adelman, a senior associate with the Washington-based policy group.

"It ain't as easy as you think," he said. "You can't use a magic wand and have this kind of thing happen."

In Oregon, a review of more than 6,000 students' academic records at the state's 17 community colleges found 109 degree-eligible students and another 905 who might qualify. Virginia's Tidewater Community College awarded 34 degrees and convinced 15 more students to return to campus from its initial pool of 651 prospects.

Four-year schools could follow the lead of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, which used the program to connect with dropouts who might still be interested in a two-year diploma. Or they could link up with neighboring community colleges in what are known as "reverse transfer" agreements.

Those agreements allow students to receive their associate's degrees if they earned enough credits toward them but didn't actually obtain them before heading to a four-year school. The two-year schools, in turn, can boost their completion rates — a critical measure for accrediting agencies and lawmakers looking for results.

One student happy to hear about what amounts to a free degree is Corey Manuel, 34, an Air Force veteran who expects to receive a bachelor's degree in management information systems from Columbia College. He took his classes at a Denver-area branch campus.

Manuel said his educational journey includes nearly 200 credits from five different schools, including a one-year stint straight out of high school playing basketball at Missouri Valley College in Marshall, Mo., and a pair of stops at Louisiana State University's community college in Eunice.

Now an information technology manager at defense contractor Raytheon, Manuel nonetheless still craves the credential he was too busy to pick up along the way.

"I wanted to make sure I had that box checked," he said.

___

Alan Scher Zagier can be reached at http://twitter.com/azagier

View the original article here