Adding the resource costs from 2008-09 and 2009-2010 would push this total to approximately $360 million, more than a third of a billion dollars.
W. Lee Hansen is a professor emeritus of economics at UW-Madison.
What is the dollar value of the resources devoted to promoting racial and ethnic diversity at UW-Madison?
Though campus administrators regularly extol the educational benefits of diversity, they say little about the costs of achieving those benefits.
How substantial are these costs? The quick answer is they are large and exceed the official published figures.
What little information has been released on these costs is quite incomplete. The annual UW System Minority and Disadvantaged Student Report admits it “reflects only a portion of the expenditures for programs and activities designed to support academic success for historically under-served students.”
The challenge here is to produce a full account of the resources costs devoted to Minority and Disadvantaged programs at UW-Madison. These 60 programs provide direct services and financial aid to help recruit, retain, and graduate targeted minority students. They do not include academic diversity programs such as the ethnic studies requirement, ethnic studies programs, or affirmative action in admissions and employment.
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