The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee will close its Waukesha campus at the end of the spring 2025 semester.
At a Monday news conference, UW-Milwaukee chancellor Mark Mone cited declining enrollment, shifting demographics and budgetary issues as reasons for the closure, which was made under a directive from Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman.
“Today, higher education is challenged,” Mone said. “We need to make very difficult decisions, to, in every possible hope for opportunity, avoid some of the more consequential types of decisions that we may see in the future.”
Around 550 full-time equivalent students are enrolled at the campus currently according to Mone. The campus closure will impact more than 100 employees and require layoffs of staff and tenured faculty as well.
The university’s Waukesha campus, which used to operate independently of UW-Milwaukee as the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha until 2018, has seen a total enrollment decline of more than 65 percent from 2014 to 2023.
“These are double digit enrollment declines, that make things rather challenging and they’re not unlike other some of the numbers that we’re seeing at other two-year campuses in this state and certainly nationally,” Mone said.
The cost to run the Waukesha campus is the same per student as it is to run the main UW-Milwaukee campus, but students in Waukesha pay half the tuition.
“So that puts us in a very untenable, very difficult situation,” Mone added.
Absolute Bullshit. The closure of the branch campuses, which bring the UW to rural Wisconsin, is a failure on the state and on the Universities of Wisconsin (formerly UW System). Thousands of students across wisconsin would not get the life-changing, fulfilling, career-opening education they fucking deserve if all of these branch campuses close.
What is next after the rest of the UW branch campuses close? Bye-bye UW Parkside? UW Superior? UW Platteville?
We can fund these colleges, we just haven't been. It is about god-damn time that our legislature has a spine and promises to fund these colleges, and to re-open the closed ones, for the future. While you're at it, make tuition free at these colleges. The state has more than enough money. Help those who need it.