At universities across the country, budgets are shrinking while enrollments are bulging. The same is true for most educational institutions in Wisconsin.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee saw its enrollment soar to more than 25,000 this semester, compared with 23,828 at this time last year. Cardinal Stritch University, with campuses in Wisconsin and Minnesota, has seen enrollment rise over 25 percent from 797 last year to 1,040 this year.
But contrary to this trend, University of Wisconsin-Madison enrollment has actually decreased. UW’s enrollment when classes started was 40,552, down nearly 1,000.
“We have not in the college had to add additional sections in the last couple years,” said Elton Aberle, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at UW. “In terms of undergraduate enrollment through last year, we have been, in CALS, fairly level over the past several years–maybe a slow trend upward, but not great. Basically, the campus enrollment has remained constant, and so has the CALS enrollment.”
While enrollments are slowly rising at state universities, community colleges across the country are seeing their highest enrollments ever.
Janet Kelly, spokesperson for Madison Area Technical College, said full-time enrollment numbers at MATC are up almost 500 compared to five years ago. Kelly expects to see another enrollment increase this year.
According to information from the U.S. Department of Education, community-college enrollments rose steadily for 20 years from the 1970s to the mid-1990s. Total enrollments during that time increased from 3.7 million nationally in 1976 to five million in 1990.
Enrollment numbers for students entering Fox Valley Technical College’s foreign-language program has increased by 104 percent. Officials at Fox Valley attribute this to students wanting to expand their employment credentials by learning Spanish as a second language.
Many universities are forced to cut enrollments and resources to make do with fewer state resources. At the August 2002 UW Board of Regents meeting, regent members said enrollments would continue to decline if the state continues the trend of decreased funding.
“I feel strongly that we have come to the end of our capacity to maintain quality with growing enrollments and declining base resources,” UW System President Katharine Lyall said at the meeting. “Over the past decade, we have absorbed almost $100 million in base cuts while continuing to admit more students in response to enrollment pressures. We have now ‘hit the wall.’ We cannot continue this trend.”
UW Regents fear enrollment stagnation through 2006 if additional state funding is not provided.
As the state decreases funding for UW, there will be fewer sections, less instructional technology and less faculty. However, the sociology department at UW has seen no change in the number of sections it offers.
“We did add some classes for freshman access for two or three years in a row,” said Ellen Jacobson, undergraduate advisor for the UW sociology department.
“We have always had a substantial number of closeouts, but no one has had to stay any extra time in order to graduate. Whenever we want to add classes, we must get money from the college, and the big push for college money was for freshman classes.”
