Sixty-nine percent of the Universities of Wisconsin students were from Wisconsin in Fall 2024, a percentage that is dragged down by UW-Madison, which ranked dead last in the percentage of its enrolled students who hail from the state, Wisconsin Right Now has documented through an open records request.
The Universities of Wisconsin told Wisconsin Right Now that the fall 2024 enrollment headcount was 164,431 for the entire system, with 112,859 of those students being Wisconsin residents and another 12,486 being admitted under Minnesota reciprocity.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is dead last when it comes to educating Wisconsin residents percentage-wise, with only 45% of its student body from the state, even though Wisconsin taxpayers pay the institution the most per enrolled student, Wisconsin Right Now has documented via an open records request.
UW-Oshkosh ranks first in the system, with 92% of its students hailing from Wisconsin, but is 9th out of the 13 universities in taxpayer funding per student.
The enrollment data is from the Universities of Wisconsin and was obtained by Wisconsin Right Now through an open records request. UW-Madison is the only UW school with less than half its fall 2024 enrollees being state residents. The university does have the largest number of aggregate Wisconsin resident students, though, due to its size, followed by UW-Milwaukee.
The findings come as talk ramps up about whether to split UW-Madison away from the other universities, a controversial idea once proposed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker.
Even though it educates a much smaller percentage of Wisconsin students, UW-Madison gets far more money per student from state taxpayers. It would seem logical that Wisconsin residents are more likely to remain in the state upon graduation; thus, it begs the question of what benefit state taxpayers are getting by funding the education of so many non-residents at a higher rate.
In November, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that UW-Madison received $10,893 in state taxpayer money “for every student it enrolled the 2023-24 school year.”
Oshkosh received $5,261. UW-Green Bay received $4,798 and UW-Milwaukee received $7,682. Why the disparities? The funding formulas is “the byproduct of allocations set in the 1970s at the time the UW System formed. The starting point for new allocations are based on the previous year’s,” the Journal Sentinel reported in an article examining the funding allocation issue.
In addition to Oshkosh, more than 80% of enrollees come from Wisconsin at the following universities: UW-Green Bay, Stevens Point, Milwaukee, Parkside, and Whitewater, WRN’s open records request found. In addition to Madison, the other universities that rank near the bottom are all from the northern or northwestern part of the state, and their lower rankings are because they take a large proportion of Minnesota students under reciprocity arrangements. When it comes to aggregate totals, UW-Madison educates the most Wisconsin students, with UW-Milwaukee second.
We previously exposed how Wisconsin parents were expressing frustration that their children were not able to get into Madison, the state’s well-funded flagship institution, despite impeccable academic records. After our reporting on the parents’ frustration, the Legislature acted swiftly, passing “The Wisconsin Guarantee.” That starts in fall 2025.
The Wisconsin Guarantee “offers guaranteed admission to all Universities of Wisconsin (UW) universities for all who qualify. First-year applicants from Wisconsin high schools who are in the top 10% of their class at the end of 11th grade, or Wisconsin residents who are homeschooled and receive an ACT score in the national 90th percentile ranking or higher, or are a National Merit Scholarship finalist will be guaranteed to all UW universities except UW-Madison,” the Universities of Wisconsin website says.
“Additionally, first-year applicants from Wisconsin high schools who are in the top 5% of their class at the end of 11th grade, or Wisconsin residents who are homeschooled and receive an ACT score in the national 98th percentile ranking or higher or are a National Merit Scholarship finalist will be guaranteed admission to UW-Madison provided that they apply on or before the Early Action deadline,” it says.
The UW System spokesman Mark Pitsch wrote WRN in response to an open records request, “Attached is a PDF that includes Fall 2024 total headcount enrollment, Fall 2024 WI resident headcount enrollment, and Fall 2024 MN reciprocity headcount enrollment, which we included because our universities serve that population as part of an agreement that provides WI resident students opportunities in MN. When using Wisconsin residents only, nearly 70% of students are Wisconsin residents. When accounting for reciprocity-agreements, it is about 76%.”
Fall 2024 enrollment is up 1.2% in the Universities of Wisconsin overall, the system said.
Note- Jessica McBride is a journalism lecturer at UW-Milwaukee. This article represents her own work and does not reflect the opinions of the institution where she works.
