After trailing the national average for five years, funding per student at public colleges and universities in Wisconsin overtook it in 2021. State and local tax and tuition funding per student dropped nationally after adjusting for inflation and rose in Wisconsin, though it remains lower for four-year campuses in Wisconsin. The state's colleges…

In 2017 to 2018, the University of Wisconsin (UW) System undertook a major consolidation, removing its two-year college campuses from a standalone sub-system known as the UW Colleges and merging them with nearby four-year UW institutions. The system-level motivation for doing so, in a state undergoing a demographic shift with an aging population,…

American public higher education is in trouble. Besieged by declining state and Federal support for more than 30 years, public colleges and universities are facing a "game-changing" set of challenges that threaten to alter the very nature of the institutions. As two recessions withered state budgets in the first decade of the 21st…

Wisconsin's stagnating state higher-education budget has forced the university to keep faculty salaries far below average. When professors get feelers from elsewhere, they learn that a move can easily mean a 100-percent salary increase--sometimes more. Budget problems have also depleted money for perks that keep faculty members on board--funds for…