To my fellow students, I must stress the relevance and importance of the current Wisconsin State Legislature’s indecision on our budget for the next two years.

All students should have received an e-mail from Chancellor Markee highlighting and enforcing the desperate need for students and faculty to encourage the powers that be to make an informed and intelligent decision based on the needs of the UW System institutions.

To put it in layman’s terms, our congressmen need to get a move on it. If this budget isn’t decided soon our university will take a huge blow when it comes to what it can offer to its students. Our class offerings will diminish and that will make it harder for us to get required classes when we need them.

Imagine, only one section of a required engineering, math or communications course being offered per semester. It could take us, as students, extra semesters to finish our degrees simply because of a lack of course sections.

It’s possible that the quality of the courses offered would diminish as well because of improper funding, which could result in an inadequate education for us as students.

The legislature is only allotting the UW System 20 percent of its alleged need for standard budget costs, according to University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly’s letter to the legislature’s conference committee.

In short, we are getting screwed. If our leaders don’t adjust the budget and pump it out to the UW System now we are the ones that will suffer.

If you don’t care about what our legislature is doing, I’m going to ask you as future leaders to make an effort. You came to college to get an education and further your chances on having a rewarding career. Don’t you want what you are paying for?

I am encouraging all of you to write to your legislature and your governor and stress your concern on this issue. It’s not going to be enough for just our faculty to get involved. We the students need to show that we care about what happens within our institution and our state.

Read your e-mail from Chancellor Markee and the information from the links provided within. Then, write to your senators and representatives and make your voice heard. Our future and the future of our state begins with us taking an interest in our own education.