UW-La Crosse and Green Bay are being forced to cut enrollment due to reduced budgets.
Most schools in the UW System, including UW-Madison, are allowed modest annual increases in enrollment under the Board of Regents’ enrollment-management plan.
The regents plan an increase of 5,300 full-time students by 2006 for all the UW schools combined.
UW has been allocated a 400-student enrollment increase for next year, but the largest increases will take place at UW-Milwaukee with a projected gain of 2,554 students.
The board’s enrollment-management plan, referred to as EM-21, is an effort officials say will ensure each student receives an adequate education with the funds available for each school.
The regents must now consider how to compensate for Gov. Scott McCallum’s proposed UW System budget reduction of $51 million.
“The $51 million proposed reduction would amount to another reduction of $300 per student, leaving our institutions the challenge of providing a quality educational experience at considerably less per student than our peers,” said UW System president Katharine Lyall.
The Board of Regents plans for a decrease in students at Green Bay and La Crosse by 2006 and restrictions for all other schools.
UW La Crosse stopped accepting applications for new freshman in January in an effort to reduce enrollment.
“We are having reduced budgets; if we are to maintain a quality education for our students, we have to limit access,” said Ron Lostetter, assistant chancellor for financial administration at UW-La Crosse. “It is something we don’t want to do, but we have no choice. Our goal is to maintain quality.”
UW-Green Bay moved up the application deadline for incoming freshman from late spring to mid February, the earliest in the school’s history.
“We don’t have any choice,” said Steven Neiheisel, UW-Green Bay assistant dean for enrollment services. “We have strong demand. Applications are up for freshman, and we’re looking at approximately the same size freshman class as we had in fall 2001.”
Student Regent Tommie Jones said the La Crosse and Green Bay campuses are dealing with housing shortages, which would help explain why they were chosen to cut back on enrollment.
“In La Crosse and Green Bay, one of their big challenges is dealing with the amount of residence halls they have on campus to house the number of students they have,” Jones said. “We never want to decrease the access for people that live in the state of Wisconsin to receive higher education.”
