Sorry, Jared. And Boxcar Billy's.

Brief articles found in today's Green Bay Press Gazette:

UW raises business majors' tuition
Sometimes it's just what you get for going to a wannabe ivy-league school... :)

University of Wisconsin business students learned a painful lesson about supply and demand today when their tuition was increased by $1,000 for next year.

Saying demand for business education was increasing faster than state support, the UW System Board of Regents raised business majors’ tuition by $500 per semester to boost teachers’ pay and hire more faculty and staff.

“The differential is needed to maintain the high quality of the program,” Regent Charles Pruitt of Shorewood said before the regents voted at a meeting in Oshkosh.

The vote marks the first time undergraduate students in a specific major will be charged a higher tuition rate than others at the state’s flagship university.

UW-Madison has also proposed a $1,400 per-year hike for engineering majors that will be phased in over three years. The regents have yet to approve that plan.

The increase for 1,300 junior and senior business majors will be on top of undergraduate tuition and fees that amounted to $6,730 this year. Tuition rates for next year will be set this summer.

Nonbusiness majors in the Certificate in Business program will also see a $150-per-semester increase. Right now, enrollment in the program is capped at 200 students, but it is expected to double with the additional resources.

Regent Elizabeth Burmaster said she initially worried the “sticker shock” of the increase would deter some students, but UW administrators convinced her they would mitigate the impact by increasing financial aid.

The increase will raise about $1.3 million per year in the first two years and then $2 million in future years after the school moves from junior to sophomore admissions. It will be reviewed after five years.

Some of the money will be used to shore up the school’s lagging faculty pay. Increases across the country as a result of a shortage of business educators have made Wisconsin’s professors susceptible to lucrative outside offers, Pruitt said.

UW administrators noted that other business schools in the Big 10, facing the same challenges, have already adopted differential tuition rates. UW-Milwaukee business students also already pay $20 extra per credit.

The school expects to hire seven new faculty members in the coming years and two additional academic and career advisers. A quarter of the new money will be used for student financial aid.

Still, the increase likely means more loans for business school graduates, who reported getting jobs with an average salary of $46,000 last year.

Fire causes $200,000 damage to Howard's Box Car Billy's
By Mike Hoeft
mhoeft@greenbaypressgazette.com

HOWARD — An overnight fire caused extensive damage to Box Car Billy's, a restaurant at 2525 Velp Ave.

Police were initially called to a burglar alarm about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday set off by motion sensors inside the restaurant. Police found smoke coming from under the eaves.

Several fire crews were sent in to knock down the fire. Ashwaubenon Public Safety was called to assist. The dining area, set in several connected railroad box cars, was damaged by heat and smoke.

The fire appears to be accidental, Howard Fire Chief John O'Connor said Thursday morning. It started in a corner of the bar area near a garbage can.

"We're still investigating the cause," O'Connor said.

Brown County fire investigators were on the scene to determine whether the fire was caused by wiring or by cigarettes thrown into trash.

Damage was estimated at $200,000, according to Lt. Scott Semb of the Brown County Sheriff's Department.

The business, owned by Bill Van Rossum, is assessed at $254,700, according to Brown County property tax records.