Opinion: UW-Milwaukee won't retain top status with more cuts. Wisconsin could fall behind.

This story has been updated because an earlier version included an inaccuracy.

A modern, thriving Wisconsin requires universities rated in the top tier of research institutions, ones that produce productivity enhancing innovations making modern life possible, while also imparting knowledge enabling citizens to create and think. Thus armed with these capacities, graduates of these Research One, or R1, universities find success in the arts, professions, sciences and as entrepreneurs.

What is an R1 university? The United States has some 4,000 colleges and universities. Among these are several hundred schools falling into 3 tiers of research defined by the Carnegie Research Classification system. Sitting at the top of this Carnegie system are the 146 universities possessing the top designation. Among them are Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, but also the nation’s best public universities.

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High-innovation enterprises locate next to such universities. They incorporate university research into their highest value-added activities while also hiring the top talent these institutions produce. Meanwhile, professionals gravitate to communities possessing research universities for the creative and diverse cultural ecosystems they create. This makes circular economies and cultures of excellence translating into enhanced community life for all.

Where these top-tier universities are located matters

These “islands” of success, such as Dane County with its R1 university, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, produce the knowledge the entire state and nation depends on, but also disproportionately the wealth creation and tax revenues supporting the rest of us.

Our neighboring states see the following number of Carnegie R1 universities:

• Illinois, 4

• Michigan, 3

• Minnesota, 2

• Iowa, 2

Historically, UW-Madison was Wisconsin's only Carnegie R1 university. But after decades of exceptional research output and strategic hiring of top talent, UW-Milwaukee joined the ranks of Carnegie R1 universities in 2016, even though its budget is low measured against the rest of the R1 pool. How low? UWM’s annual budget of $685 million is only one-sixth of UW-Madison’s $4 billion.

This decades in the making achievement of securing R1 status at UWM coincided with the start of state budget cuts. Reductions to UWM’s budget have seen roughly 20% of its faculty the past decade lost to retirements not replaced and top researchers exiting for other R1 universities across the country. But it’s not just the numbers of professors vacating, but their quality.

State budget cuts have led to exodus of talent at UW-Milwaukee

Those departing the past decade were among UWM’s best. These scholars went to UCLA, UC-Santa Barbara, Tufts University, Texas A&M, University of Minnesota, University of Oregon and several others ranking above UWM where they often secured hefty salary increases in thriving research environments. Many personally commented to me they wished to remain and continue building UWM, but the funding climate became unsustainably too uncertain for them.

Responding to the above exodus of talent, I have heard some retort, “Good, we need to trim fat and students studying useless topics like philosophy.” Reality often is at variance with perception. First, of the approximately 630 professors (tenured/tenure track) at UWM less than 1% (6) are philosophers, who among other topics, teach logic.

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Moreover, several studies show philosophy students by standardized test scores are among the smartest in the academy and earn above average incomes after graduation. In short, our universities have precious few of the faculty type some imagine, but could use more like philosophers given the success of their graduates. Regardless, most faculty are overwhelmingly in fields such as business, computer science, engineering, nursing, etc.

The idea of purging universities of “useless” degrees anchored in culture is nothing new. Nikita Khrushchev in the Soviet Union and Chairman Mao in the communist China wished to do the same, with a sole focus on workforce development and science. This failed, however, as science flourishes in larger creative ecosystems. Public research universities could, should and do focus on professions and trades. But they also should retain their traditional niches of arts and critical thinking that can generate the biggest of disruptive innovations.

'Useless' degrees often produce world changing grads like Steve Jobs

One only need remember Steve Jobs’ reflections on the study of “useless” Japanese Calligraphy, which permitted him to “Think Different” and create the first Apple Mac typeface, subsequently copied by Windows, thus launching the personal computer industry. In short, there are people smarter than me (and perhaps you) for whom the university has helped transform our world for the better, and we might be well served to maintain their creative environments that incubate innovation.

Meanwhile, others imagine universities as hotbeds of Marxism. At UWM, the university’s two most prominently located and well-appointed buildings are the School of Business and the Center for Entrepreneurship, both funded and named after Republican businessman Sheldon Lubar.

You won’t find a Karl Marx building, bronze bust, or even a broom closet named for him. I never assigned works by Marx, but if my colleagues have, good, as universities are places to read the world’s most influential authors whether they be on the political left, center or right regardless of whether we agree with them. And for those assigning Adam Smith or other conservatives from the canon of classics, good for them too for the same reason.

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But, returning to message: Milwaukee and Wisconsin face the prospect of losing this R1 designation for UWM, and with it, returning to the status of Iowa that possesses only a single Carnegie R1 university absent adequate investment. UWM can retain this important designation and even doing so while run on the most modest of budgets for an R1 university.

But it is doubtful UWM can continue doing so with the cut budget allocations (especially inflation adjusted) over the past decade. Milwaukee, both its government and private sector, along with Wisconsin, must decide whether to retain this Carnegie R1 designation for UWM with all the benefits it confers, or lose it and thus see Milwaukee and Wisconsin fall further behind all but one of our neighboring states.

Jeffrey Sommers is professor of political economy and public policy at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and senior fellow at its Institute of World Affairs.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Opinion: Top research universities drive economic growth. UWM at risk.