The University of Wisconsin at Madison has been largely targeted by Governor Scott Walker. He has made large cuts to the budget, had tried to remove professor

The University of Wisconsin at Madison has been largely targeted by Governor Scott Walker. He has made large cuts to the budget, had tried to remove professor tenure, and has more or less filled the Board of Regents with his political friends. When I was still in grad school (~2 years ago), people were worried about a brain drain from the school. Why would a great professor want to stay at UWisc if the Governor is taking away tenure and threatening to do performance reviews? Of course, Walker is trying to get reelected now so he is proposing tuition cuts for students to try to save face. In Illinois, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been hit hard by funding shortfalls as well. This has been going on for years now since the state government cannot get its act together. The university is still great, but you have to wonder at what point the cuts will take their toll. A rising star professor may not want to stay at an institution that always needs to worry about funding and whether or not they need to furlough employees. At some point, the best researchers and teachers leave and go elsewhere.