UW President Hopeful New Initiatives Will Reverse Decline in Participation in Wisconsin

Monday, August 12th, 2024 -- 10:01 AM

(Rich Kremer, Wisconsin Public Radio) Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman says he’s hopeful a college tuition promise program, direct admissions and increased state support will reverse an ongoing decline in college participation in the state.

But, according to Rich Kremer with Wisconsin Public Radio, some members of a legislative committee studying the future of the UW system are skeptical about spending more on a shrinking pool of students.

Rothman touched on several familiar themes while testifying before a newly-created Legislative Council Study Committee on the Future of the University of Wisconsin System on Thursday.

He cited three main challenges for state universities: declining enrollment, lagging financial support from the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature, and a flagging public perception of the value of higher education.

Declining enrollment has been a constant for much of the past decade, though numbers improved slightly last semester. UW enrollment data shows a peak of 182,090 students in 2010 during the Great Recession. That fell to 160,782 in 2022 and recovered slightly last fall. 

More troubling, Rothman said, is what the UW calls its “participation rate,” which measures the percentage of high school graduates enrolling in four-year campuses immediately after graduation.

From 2009 through 2017, the rate hovered around 32 percent, but fell to a low of around 26 percent in 2022, according to UW data. The rate improved slightly to 27 percent in 2023.

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