MATC President Describes a Tuition-Free Promise That Could Change Milwaukee

Vicki Martin was at a national conference of community college leaders and set out to attend a workshop. But she walked into a different session than the one was looking for. That worked out well — it triggered a change in her thinking that may trigger a change in the education and job prospects for large numbers of low-income Milwaukee young adults.

Martin is president of Milwaukee Area Technical College and the session she walked into was about a program called the Tennessee Promise, which offers two years of community and technical college education with no tuition cost for high school graduates in that state.

“It really caught my imagination,” Martin said during an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program at Eckstein Hall on Feb. 23. She decided, “This is very doable. . . . We just have to do it.”

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New Poll Results Illuminate a Year That Goes Beyond “Interesting”

Goodness, those Donald Trump poll numbers – they do take my breath away. And the Hillary Clinton numbers do much the same.

The release Thursday of a new set of Marquette Law School Poll results brought a wave of interesting insights into public opinion in Wisconsin, as it always does.

But the degree to which Trump and Clinton are polarizing figures, the subject of both great support and great opposition, goes beyond the word “interesting.” It’s vivid history being made in front of our eyes, especially with each in good position to win nomination. A Clinton-Trump showdown for the presidency in the fall – it’s an amazing but somewhat likely prospect.

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Senator Johnson Is “More Panicked” About State of the Nation Now Than Five Years Ago

Ron Johnson says he gets a big smile on his face when the airplane he is aboard lifts off from Reagan National Airport in Washington and he knows he’s heading to Wisconsin.

So why not leave a place Johnson calls a frustrating center of dysfunction, stay in Wisconsin, and go back to the life he loved as a businessman in Oshkosh? Mike Gousha, the Law School’s distinguished fellow in law and public policy, posed that question during an “On the Issues” session Feb. 5 at Eckstein Hall with the Republican senator who is in the last year of a six-year term in office

“I can’t quit, much as I’d like to go home,” Johnson answered. “The bottom line is this nation is on the wrong course and we’ve got to correct it. This nation is worth preserving.”

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