MADISON, Wis. – While families across Wisconsin work and struggle to fund their children’s college education, one professor at the University of Wisconsin says tuition far is too low.

UW-Madison English Professor Caroline Levine made $121,563 in 2014-15, and presumably takes in even more now. And she’s clearly not happy with that salary.

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She announced in an op-ed recently published in the Madison Capital Times that she will be leaving the university for a job at another school, where she will be making 50 percent more.

Levine objects to Gov. Scott Walker’s tuition freeze, which has prohibited UW leaders from passing on the exorbitant cost of administrative and faculty compensation to struggling students and their families.

“Businesses charge market rates for their products and services,” Levine wrote, according to RightWisconsin.com. “Top-tier private colleges and universities right now are charging $44,000 or more in tuition each year, more than three times the rate of in-state tuition for an education at the UW-Madison, ranked in the top 50 universities around the world.

“Why are prices so low? Because politicians have put a cap on tuition.”

How interesting to hear a UW professor suggest that the university system should operate like a business. Not long ago UW faculty members screamed just the opposite when the Board of Regents made changes to job-protecting tenure rights, giving chancellors more power to move tenured professors out the door if the subjects they teach are no long part of the curriculum.

The professors argued that all should remain employed, and taxpayers should keep funding their handsome salaries, even if their services are no longer needed. How does that jive with the type of free market economic principles that Levine calls for?

And if market forces determined university salaries, like they do in the private sector, how much does Levine really believe she would make? After all, she specializes in “Victorian literature and culture, formalism, realism, narrative theory, world literature, and the relations between art and politics.”

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Is there a great deal of student demand for spots in the classes she teachers? Are students clamoring to learn more about the “relations between art and politics?” If not, then the rules of the marketplace would dictate that she be paid less, and instructors who teach popular classes more, because they bring in more revenue.

“It’s like telling Toyota that they must charge a particular price for their cars, while letting Honda and General Motors and Hyundai sell the same – or inferior – vehicles to the same customers at four times the cost,” Levine wrote.

First of all, Toyota is an “it,” not a “they,” a grammatical fact that one might expect a distinguished professor of English to know.

Secondly, even though UW apparently charges students less that some state universities, lots of professors at UW still make a great deal of money.

In December 2015, the UW system had 2,842 employees, including many professors and administrators, making more than $100,000 per year in straight salary, not counting benefits. A total of 279 made more than $200,000 in straight salary, according to a published database.

At UW-Madison, full professors were recently paid an average of roughly $123,000 per year in straight salary, according to news reports. At UW-Milwaukee in 2013-14, full professors averaged $101,700 in straight salary, according to state government statistics.

Add on the cost of benefits, like health insurance and pensions, and the UW system has one huge payroll.

In the past, before Walker imposed a tuition freeze, the university obviously passed its increasing labor costs on to students.

Between 2004-05 and 2013-14, for example, UW-Madison faculty received general raises totaling more than 23 percent. Meanwhile, the annual cost of student tuition and fees rose from $5,866 in 2004-05 to $10,403 in 2012-13. Is that a coincidence?

Without the tuition freeze, student costs would continue to spiral as labor costs increase, leaving many youngsters locked out.

The people of Wisconsin fund the University of Wisconsin for the benefit of young people, not to make professors rich. Some might argue that UW must provide competitive salaries to keep top faculty – but what’s the point of having outstanding professors if a high percentage of young Wisconsin residents can’t afford to take their classes?

Perhaps the debate over the tuition freeze should be settled by Wisconsin citizens, who, after all, own the university. They could be polled and asked whether they believe UW tuition is far too low, and professors should be paid a lot more.

We’re pretty sure Levine and her colleagues would not be happy with the results of that poll.