As students who attend UW-La Crosse, the members of Student Senate address the issues that concerns students with sincere thought to create better future for UW-L students. Last week, Chancellor Joe Gow was the featured speaker during Student Senate's weekly meeting, answering questions from the students in Senate as well as the audience. Many questions were asked concerning the UW System budget lapse, and more importantly, how it will affect students. "As more prospective students come into the university, more tuition must be paid out of our pockets," he said. "We live in a privileged society, and unfortunately, this may not affect students too strongly right now, but your younger brothers or sisters, and if you have children, may have to pay a steep price to attend college."

 Many students agree; college will be much more difficult to pay for in the future. "My sister will probably be going to college on a diving scholarship. My brother went to a two-year school and currently is a railroad engineer," said sophomore Katie Aldrich, "He probably makes more than I will, but he doesn't have any vacation and works sixty hours a week."

One of the biggest issues this year was the monetary funds of public universities. Considering that only one out of five people in the United States today have gone to college, "It would be understandable that some people would not want to pay tax dollars to contribute," said Gow. Today, student's borrowing privileges have already been affected with a 5.5 percent capped increase in tuition for each student at UW-L that had already gone into effect for the fall semester. When questioned about this, and how the current budget lapse will affect the student body, Chancellor Gow informed the audience.

"Tuition will only increase in the future as the demands of providing for a large student population increases," said Gow, "And with the budget lapse, an increase in tuition is something that not only will happen, but must happen," letting the student and staff members in the audience know to prepare for progressively worse news as the months and the semester goes by.

 Gow noted that one of the biggest discrepancies is the fact that the State is demanding more pay-back from the UW system. They also  simultaneously continue to give money to the University, only for it to be paid back in due time to the state. This creates a cycle for public colleges throughout Wisconsin.

Madisson Heinze, Student Association President, noted the importance of knowing the difference between budget cuts and the budget lapse. They are two different problems; budget cuts are decreases in funding for a particular program or entity that are factored into the budget for the next fiscal period, while budget lapses occur when an authority seizes a certain amount of unspent funds that were appropriated with the previously passed budget. Maddisson noted that the budget problems were anticipated by UW-L, and the University prepared accordingly. "At UW-L our administration has done a phenomenal job to prepare for major budget cuts this biennium; however, if the cuts and "give-backs" continue, we are going to face some additional challenges."