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Don't you just love last-minute breaking news when you're trying to head out the door on vacation? Come on.....!  THIS JUST IN. Tim Sullivan, businessman, has issued a blueprint prepared for Governor Scott Walker that includes some significant plans for higher education. Among its highlights: The skills gap demonstrated by highly-esteemed economists , as well as leading Wisconsin organizations with sizable expertise in business and higher education is apparently a "myth. "  Writes Sullivan, "there are opportunities available if people know where to look and can see the value." (p.101) Sure, he admits his is no scientific study-- after all, he is doing policy analysis by anecdote, drawing on his experiences at his own company-- but gee, he's sure confident there's a myth out there to be busted! The costs of Wisconsin Technical Colleges are too high because they are doing too much--namely, wasting time on liberal arts college transfer, "spending...

As we move into the closing months of debate over Governor Scott Walker's budget bill, it is becoming clear that there's little appetite for the New Badger Partnership outside of Madison. That's not to say that the Wisconsin Idea Partnership is likely to succeed either. Instead, the state has begun a very important discussion about the future of public higher education. No one--whether pro or con-NBP-- seems to think what we're doing right now is working terribly well. And the metrics would seem to bear that out --our degree completion rates, access rates, affordability rates-- all are essentially mediocre. We can and must do better, and it's in that spirit that I will begin to propose some principles and prospects for reform. My proposals are grounded in the spirit of the Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862 that helped create the University of Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin Idea that helped sustain it. They are also grounded in decades of empirical research o...