{"id":17921,"date":"2025-11-13T21:08:58","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T22:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=17921"},"modified":"2025-11-13T22:57:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T22:57:05","slug":"most-uw-system-schools-enrollments-are-stagnant-as-tech-colleges-flourish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=17921","title":{"rendered":"Most\u00a0UW\u00a0System\u00a0schools\u2019 enrollments are stagnant as tech colleges flourish"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.badgerinstitute.org\/most-uw-system-schools-enrollments-are-stagnant-as-tech-colleges-flourish\/<\/a><\/p>\n

While\u00a0undergraduate enrollment in\u00a0most\u00a0University of\u00a0Wisconsin\u00a0System\u00a0schools\u00a0trends downward, there has been a dramatic increase in students choosing the state\u2019s technical\u00a0colleges\u00a0since the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Historically tied to population and economic shifts across the state, the 16 schools in the Wisconsin Technical College System are\u00a0benefiting\u00a0from a re-evaluation of the cost and value of four-year colleges and the turn away from\u00a0two-year\u00a0colleges.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The\u00a0technical college\u00a0system has also become a state leader in dual enrollment, allowing\u00a0high school\u00a0students to earn higher education credits for classes taken at\u00a0a\u00a0technical college or a university.<\/p>\n

Enrollment across the technical college system for the 2024-25 school year is 293,904\u00a0\u2014\u00a0an 18 percent increase since 2020-21. The number of full-time equivalent students is 64,451, according to WTCS data, 11 percent higher than 2020-21.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0comparison, enrollment has\u00a0gone the other way, if only slightly,\u00a0in the\u00a0University\u00a0of Wisconsin System. In the fall of 2024, 138,703 students were enrolled in undergraduate programs,\u00a0down by\u00a0about\u00a0half of one percent\u00a0since\u00a0the fall of\u00a02020. Of those\u00a0enrolled in the 2024-25 school year,\u00a0111,744 were full-time, down\u00a02 percent\u00a0since\u00a02020-21.<\/p>\n

Some traditional universities in the UW System, including UW-Madison,\u00a0are growing\u00a0their enrollments in recent years,\u00a0but they are exceptions.\u00a0The\u00a0main\u00a0campuses of\u00a0UW-Milwaukee, UW-Oshkosh,\u00a0UW-Parkside, UW-Platteville, UW-River Falls,\u00a0UW-Superior\u00a0and\u00a0UW-Stout\u00a0had\u00a0fewer\u00a0full-time\u00a0undergraduates\u00a0enrolled in 2024-25 than they did in 2020-21, as\u00a0did\u00a0many of their satellite campuses.<\/p>\n

Part of the\u00a0boom\u00a0at the technical schools comes from increasing numbers of high school students in dual enrollment programs.\u00a0A\u00a0record\u00a078,703 high school students were earning dual enrollment credits at the end of last year, 63,115 or 80.2 percent of them through technical colleges, according to a Wisconsin Policy Forum\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0published this summer.<\/p>\n

State\u00a0senators\u00a0Rachael Cabral-Guevara, R-Appleton, and Andr\u00e9\u00a0Jacque, R-New\u00a0Franken, introduced\u00a0a\u00a0bill<\/a>\u00a0late last month to streamline,\u00a0simplify\u00a0and encourage students and families to take advantage of dual enrollment.<\/p>\n

Technical colleges are seeing the results of focusing on the needs of students and the businesses that rely on trained workers in their regions and adjusting their curricula to meet those needs,\u00a0said\u00a0Katy Pettersen, chief\u00a0spokeswoman\u00a0for the\u00a0WTCS.<\/p>\n

Among those adjustments are providing classes that signal to students that technical college is a route to a\u00a0well-paid\u00a0job but also a legitimate starting place for a four-year degree, Pettersen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJobs,\u00a0and education for jobs,\u00a0is still going to be what we do,\u00a0and we are training for the future, for programmers for AI,\u201d Pettersen said. \u201cWe\u2019re not your grandfather\u2019s\u00a0vo-tech.\u201d<\/p>\n

An indicator of the rebound for technical colleges is in the credentials\u00a0\u2014\u00a0chiefly associate,\u00a0applied associate\u00a0or technical\u00a0degrees or\u00a0short-term diplomas\u00a0\u2014\u00a0earned by students, according to WTCS data.<\/p>\n

Students earned 29,751 credentials in the most recent school year, up 5 percent from the year before and up 11.3 percent since the COVID year 2020-21. The 28,325 credentials earned in 2023-24\u00a0was\u00a06 percent higher than the year before, according to the data.<\/p>\n

The difference in the cost of education\u00a0between technical colleges and the UW System\u00a0is more important than ever. The\u00a0annual tuition<\/a>\u00a0fee\u00a0across the WTCS system is $4,585.50.\u00a0Annual tuition<\/a>\u00a0fees\u00a0for the UW\u00a0System\u00a0this school year vary\u00a0from a low of $6,006 for an in-state student at UW-Stevens Point\u2019s Marshfield campus to $12,166 for an in-state student at UW-Madison.<\/p>\n

Making it easier for students to transfer between the UW and WTCS and making universal\u00a0such\u00a0early college credit programs\u00a0as\u00a0dual enrollment were two\u00a0recommendations\u00a0<\/a>of last year\u2019s legislative Study Committee on the Future of the University of Wisconsin System.<\/p>\n

While that committee\u2019s purview was the UW\u00a0System, committee chair Rep. Amanda\u00a0Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie, said students and taxpayers are asking more\u00a0about\u00a0what technical colleges are providing for education.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, they (the public) are seeing more value in our technical colleges than in the UW System,\u201d Nedweski told the Badger Institute. \u201cThe public wants to see a return on investment when it comes to higher education. They want to see our institutions of higher learning serving and building Wisconsin\u2019s workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n

The technical college system in\u00a0Wisconsin\u00a0has evolved out of necessity to serve employers and to help keep a trained workforce in communities, many of them rural and\u00a0low-income,\u00a0Pettersen\u00a0told the Badger Institute.<\/p>\n

WTCS schools, however, also offer humanities courses with credits that will transfer to a UW\u00a0System\u00a0school, although the\u00a0selection of\u00a0courses varies by school.<\/p>\n

WTCS schools, acting independently, can create and get approval for a new class or program in less than six months. That kind of tinkering, tailored to the needs of the local\u00a0economy,\u00a0goes on\u00a0constantly,\u00a0Pettersen\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

Examples are the\u00a0Health Career Academy<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Construction Trades Academy<\/a>\u00a0through Mid-State Technical College, based in Marshfield. One of its\u00a0four\u00a0campuses, in Adams, serves one of the poorest and least educated counties in Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

Both academies are grounded in dual enrollment. In one semester, an Adams-Friendship High School student can earn six college credits and earn a certificate in\u00a0healthcare\u00a0foundations. A student anywhere in the orbit of Mid-State can earn a technical diploma with 12 credits in the construction trades over two years while still in high school.<\/p>\n

Those credits can be applied to\u00a0additional\u00a0education and training through the technical college. Jackie Esselman, dean of\u00a0recruitment\u00a0and\u00a0admissions\u00a0at Mid-State,\u00a0credits dual enrollment for the success of both academies and a resulting boost in\u00a0enrollment,\u00a0the second largest percentage jump this year in the WTCS system.<\/p>\n

Aover\u00a02,800\u00a0of the 12,440 students on the school\u2019s four campuses earned\u00a0nearly 12,800\u00a0credits through dual enrollment. And because those classes\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0have to be duplicated, the school estimates the overall cost savings to school districts and Mid-State at a little more than $2 million a year, Esselman told the Badger Institute.<\/p>\n

The added presence of Mid-State in high schools has, in turn, generated interest in Mid-State as an educational\u00a0option, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love dual credit,\u201d Esselman said. \u201cI wish it would have been available when I was in high school. I\u00a0probably changed\u00a0majors six or seven times before I found something I really wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The importance of technical colleges\u00a0such as\u00a0Mid-State will\u00a0almost certainly\u00a0grow with the\u202fdecline of two-year colleges,\u00a0which are part\u00a0of\u00a0UW\u00a0System,\u00a0particularly in the more remote parts of the state.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0the Badger Institute previously\u00a0reported (here<\/a>,\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a>) enrollment\u00a0at two-year UW campuses\u00a0is steeply down to a few thousand students statewide\u00a0as the schools\u00a0vie\u00a0unsuccessfully for many of the same prospective students\u00a0as technical colleges or branches that are no\u00a0harder to travel to.<\/p>\n

Over the past seven years,\u00a0five two-year\u00a0UW\u00a0colleges have\u00a0closed\u00a0and a sixth now\u00a0offers\u00a0only online courses.<\/p>\n

Mark Lisheron is the Managing Editor of the Badger Institute.<\/em><\/p>\n

Any\u202fuse or reproduction of Badger Institute articles or photographs requires prior written\u202fpermission.\u202fTo request permission to post articles on a website or print copies for distribution, contact Badger Institute Marketing Director Matt Erdman at\u202f<\/em>matt@badgerinstitute.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Submit a comment<\/h2>\n

\t\t\t\t#wpforms-55718.wpforms-block-d63def61-f52b-45ae-8610-a3816c979311 {
\n\t\t\t\t–wpforms-button-background-color: #9e1b2f;
\n–wpforms-field-size-input-height: 43px;
\n–wpforms-field-size-input-spacing: 15px;
\n–wpforms-field-size-font-size: 16px;
\n–wpforms-field-size-line-height: 19px;
\n–wpforms-field-size-padding-h: 14px;
\n–wpforms-field-size-checkbox-size: 16px;
\n–wpforms-field-size-sublabel-spacing: 5px;
\n–wpforms-field-size-icon-size: 1;
\n–wpforms-label-size-font-size: 16px;
\n–wpforms-label-size-line-height: 19px;
\n–wpforms-label-size-sublabel-font-size: 14px;
\n–wpforms-label-size-sublabel-line-height: 17px;
\n–wpforms-button-size-font-size: 20px;
\n–wpforms-button-size-height: 48px;
\n–wpforms-button-size-padding-h: 20px;
\n–wpforms-button-size-margin-top: 15px;
\n–wpforms-container-shadow-size-box-shadow: none;
\n\t\t\t}<\/p>\n

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.<\/p>\n
Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.<\/div>\n
\n
\n\t\t\t