This post originally appeared at https://www.badgerinstitute.org/the-end-of-wisconsins-two-year-colleges/

Plummeting enrollment and competing options make them increasingly obsolete

A legislative committee formed to study falling enrollment across the University of Wisconsin System could recommend putting an end to what’s left of a tottering two-year branch campus system.

The leadership of the Study Committee on the Future of the University of Wisconsin System insists that no one on the 18-member committee has suggested that in its first two meetings, in July and last Thursday, Aug. 8. 

Jay Rothman, president of the Universities of Wisconsin, told the Badger Institute through a spokesperson this week that the fate of branch campuses would not be decided apart from a review of all system campuses.

But however cautious and deliberative the committee is, it will be difficult to avoid the evidence that has been piling up like a jackknifed train for the last two years. With all of the alternatives available — the expansion of liberal arts programs at technical colleges and more access to four-year colleges — it’s fair to ask why we need the two-year schools at all.

Students and their parents are answering that question. The number of two-year campuses has shrunk by six — there are now seven of them — in half a year, and two more could be closed if enrollments don’t immediately improve.

Overall enrollment in the schools is down by more than 64%, from 9,959 in 2010 to 3,556 in 2023, according to a UW-Milwaukee report. Enrollment dropped by more than half since 2018 alone, when the two-year schools came under the authority of four-year schools, according to Rothman’s branch campus briefing in October 2023.

UW-Oshkosh at Fox Cities branch enrollment fell from 1,629 to 563 in 2023, according to UW enrollment data. UW-Stevens Point at Wausau enrollment went from 802 to 364.

Of all the branches, just four of them — UW-Green Bay at Manitowoc, UW-Platteville at Baraboo Sauk County, UW-Eau Claire at Barron County and UW-Whitewater at Rock County — had enrollment increases, all of them slight, over the last two school years, according to the data.

Part of the challenge is shared by other types of colleges. Fewer high school students want a college degree of any sort. But there is also more competition for two-year schools that no longer have as unique a niche.

Wisconsin’s technical colleges, many of them in the same geographical areas, are now offering liberal arts degrees. Four-year schools, in the meantime, are generally easier to get into than they were just a few years ago.

Committee Chair Rep. Amanda Nedweski told the Badger Institute this week, “We’re facing some very serious demographic challenges reflected in declining enrollment across the system. We can’t continue to operate at the status quo; it just can’t be done. There may be some on the committee who see branch campuses as low-hanging fruit.”

Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie, made it clear she doesn’t think “it’s the role of this committee to say you have to close campuses or not.” And not everyone on the committee shares her opinion that branch campus closings will almost certainly elbow their way into discussions in their three remaining meetings through October.

But the subject will be hard to ignore.

UW-Platteville’s campus in Richland Center closed earlier this summer. UW-Milwaukee followed an early May status report by announcing it would close its West Bend campus immediately and its Waukesha branch by spring 2025.

UW-Oshkosh at Fond du Lac, UW-Green Bay at Marinette and UW-Oshkosh’s Fox Cities campus in Menasha followed. This week, UW-Stevens Point Chancellor Thomas Gibson said that without enrollment increases defying a decade-long trend, he would recommend closing his school’s Marshfield and Wausau two-year branches.

Wausau was expected to run a $1 million deficit and Marshfield a $190,000 deficit in 2025, on top of a combined debt at the end of the 2024 school year of nearly $1,600,000, Gibson said.

Local officials and some educators have pushed back. After learning that the Fox Cities campus would be shut down, Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson said UW-Oshkosh Chancellor Andy Leavitt and Rothman “let down the students and families of UW Fox and betrayed their trust — and now it will be up to the rest of us to clean up their mess. Shame on you.”

After the UW-Milwaukee decision, the school’s Faculty Senate voted to reject the teaching layoffs that will result from the West Bend and Waukesha campus closings. The vote was symbolic, however, and will have no bearing on the layoffs of teachers or other staff.

Federal money has helped the two-year schools persevere in recent years, but they are at the end of a once-in-a-generation windfall from three federal COVID-19 bills.

While data isn’t available for Wisconsin in particular, a study of nearly 1,000 two-year schools across the country found that at least 95% of the $25 billion they received from the COVID-19 bills had already been spent by February 2024.

Behind every demographic challenge with a branch campus is a budget challenge. The state has done no study breaking out the combined costs of the branches, but tuition made up nearly $1.8 billion, or about a quarter, of the $7.5 billion operating budget for the UW System as a whole for the 2023-24 school year, according to an overview provided to the study committee by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

The $1.6 billion amount of federal funding, the second largest contributor to the budget at 21.3%, is going to decrease in future years with the end of the COVID binge. State taxpayers contributed $1.3 billion, or $17.5%, of the operating budget. 

Nedweski said she thinks state taxpayers are proud of the UW System and have been paying their fair share, but there are questions to which the committee wants answers.

“I’ve said this before: I want to know why they (students and parents) aren’t buying what you’re selling,” Nedweski said.

Committee vice-chair Sen. Cory Tomczyk, R-Mosinee, said he gets worked up when, in the face of an overall systemwide enrollment drop of 20,000 students over eight years since 2014, he hears calls for more funding for the system.

“I don’t understand how people think sometimes. It boggles my mind,” Tomczyk said.

Tomczyk said he’s also not quite sure why he was asked to serve on the committee. He is a successful businessman who never went to college. But that also gives him some insight into shifting public perceptions about higher education.

When asked directly, Tomczyk said it was too early in the meeting process for his opinion about what to do about two-year campuses. But he has questions, too.

“There are questions being asked about the two-year schools,” he said. “Not everybody needs a college education. What about online education? There is too much that doesn’t make sense.”

Committee member Shauna Froelich has seen relative success and failure in the branch campuses in Manitowoc and Marinette. Froelich is an associate teaching professor in communications at UW-Green Bay. She said she accepted her committee assignment out of deep concern for her students. She, too, thinks the funding and enrollment issues will prompt a “robust conversation” about the future of the remaining branch campuses.

“If I had to guess I would say it will be gradual rather than all at once,” she told the Badger Institute. “I think it would be a worthwhile conversation to have.”

Mark Lisheron is the Managing Editor of the Badger Institute. Permission to reprint is granted as long as the author and Badger Institute are properly cited.

var gform;gform||(document.addEventListener(“gform_main_scripts_loaded”,function(){gform.scriptsLoaded=!0}),window.addEventListener(“DOMContentLoaded”,function(){gform.domLoaded=!0}),gform={domLoaded:!1,scriptsLoaded:!1,initializeOnLoaded:function(o){gform.domLoaded&&gform.scriptsLoaded?o():!gform.domLoaded&&gform.scriptsLoaded?window.addEventListener(“DOMContentLoaded”,o):document.addEventListener(“gform_main_scripts_loaded”,o)},hooks:{action:{},filter:{}},addAction:function(o,n,r,t){gform.addHook(“action”,o,n,r,t)},addFilter:function(o,n,r,t){gform.addHook(“filter”,o,n,r,t)},doAction:function(o){gform.doHook(“action”,o,arguments)},applyFilters:function(o){return gform.doHook(“filter”,o,arguments)},removeAction:function(o,n){gform.removeHook(“action”,o,n)},removeFilter:function(o,n,r){gform.removeHook(“filter”,o,n,r)},addHook:function(o,n,r,t,i){null==gform.hooks[o][n]&&(gform.hooks[o][n]=[]);var e=gform.hooks[o][n];null==i&&(i=n+”_”+e.length),gform.hooks[o][n].push({tag:i,callable:r,priority:t=null==t?10:t})},doHook:function(n,o,r){var t;if(r=Array.prototype.slice.call(r,1),null!=gform.hooks[n][o]&&((o=gform.hooks[n][o]).sort(function(o,n){return o.priority-n.priority}),o.forEach(function(o){“function”!=typeof(t=o.callable)&&(t=window[t]),”action”==n?t.apply(null,r):r[0]=t.apply(null,r)})),”filter”==n)return r[0]},removeHook:function(o,n,t,i){var r;null!=gform.hooks[o][n]&&(r=(r=gform.hooks[o][n]).filter(function(o,n,r){return!!(null!=i&&i!=o.tag||null!=t&&t!=o.priority)}),gform.hooks[o][n]=r)}});

/* = 0;if(!is_postback){return;}var form_content = jQuery(this).contents().find(‘#gform_wrapper_21’);var is_confirmation = jQuery(this).contents().find(‘#gform_confirmation_wrapper_21’).length > 0;var is_redirect = contents.indexOf(‘gformRedirect(){‘) >= 0;var is_form = form_content.length > 0 && ! is_redirect && ! is_confirmation;var mt = parseInt(jQuery(‘html’).css(‘margin-top’), 10) + parseInt(jQuery(‘body’).css(‘margin-top’), 10) + 100;if(is_form){jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_21’).html(form_content.html());if(form_content.hasClass(‘gform_validation_error’)){jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_21’).addClass(‘gform_validation_error’);} else {jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_21’).removeClass(‘gform_validation_error’);}setTimeout( function() { /* delay the scroll by 50 milliseconds to fix a bug in chrome */ jQuery(document).scrollTop(jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_21’).offset().top – mt); }, 50 );if(window[‘gformInitDatepicker’]) {gformInitDatepicker();}if(window[‘gformInitPriceFields’]) {gformInitPriceFields();}var current_page = jQuery(‘#gform_source_page_number_21’).val();gformInitSpinner( 21, ‘https://e74sq7k37a8.exactdn.com/wp-content/plugins/gravityforms/images/spinner.svg’, true );jQuery(document).trigger(‘gform_page_loaded’, [21, current_page]);window[‘gf_submitting_21’] = false;}else if(!is_redirect){var confirmation_content = jQuery(this).contents().find(‘.GF_AJAX_POSTBACK’).html();if(!confirmation_content){confirmation_content = contents;}jQuery(‘#gform_wrapper_21’).replaceWith(confirmation_content);jQuery(document).scrollTop(jQuery(‘#gf_21’).offset().top – mt);jQuery(document).trigger(‘gform_confirmation_loaded’, [21]);window[‘gf_submitting_21’] = false;wp.a11y.speak(jQuery(‘#gform_confirmation_message_21’).text());}else{jQuery(‘#gform_21’).append(contents);if(window[‘gformRedirect’]) {gformRedirect();}}jQuery(document).trigger(“gform_pre_post_render”, [{ formId: “21”, currentPage: “current_page”, abort: function() { this.preventDefault(); } }]); if (event && event.defaultPrevented) { return; } const gformWrapperDiv = document.getElementById( “gform_wrapper_21” ); if ( gformWrapperDiv ) { const visibilitySpan = document.createElement( “span” ); visibilitySpan.id = “gform_visibility_test_21”; gformWrapperDiv.insertAdjacentElement( “afterend”, visibilitySpan ); } const visibilityTestDiv = document.getElementById( “gform_visibility_test_21” ); let postRenderFired = false; function triggerPostRender() { if ( postRenderFired ) { return; } postRenderFired = true; jQuery( document ).trigger( ‘gform_post_render’, [21, current_page] ); gform.utils.trigger( { event: ‘gform/postRender’, native: false, data: { formId: 21, currentPage: current_page } } ); if ( visibilityTestDiv ) { visibilityTestDiv.parentNode.removeChild( visibilityTestDiv ); } } function debounce( func, wait, immediate ) { var timeout; return function() { var context = this, args = arguments; var later = function() { timeout = null; if ( !immediate ) func.apply( context, args ); }; var callNow = immediate && !timeout; clearTimeout( timeout ); timeout = setTimeout( later, wait ); if ( callNow ) func.apply( context, args ); }; } const debouncedTriggerPostRender = debounce( function() { triggerPostRender(); }, 200 ); if ( visibilityTestDiv && visibilityTestDiv.offsetParent === null ) { const observer = new MutationObserver( ( mutations ) => { mutations.forEach( ( mutation ) => { if ( mutation.type === ‘attributes’ && visibilityTestDiv.offsetParent !== null ) { debouncedTriggerPostRender(); observer.disconnect(); } }); }); observer.observe( document.body, { attributes: true, childList: false, subtree: true, attributeFilter: [ ‘style’, ‘class’ ], }); } else { triggerPostRender(); } } );} );
/* ]]> */

The post The end of Wisconsin’s two-year colleges?  appeared first on Badger Institute.