Category: Higher Education/System

Baby boomers who embraced the humanities in college are flocking to a growing number of programs that feed their desire to keep learning without the pressure of tests or grades.

Stanford University tops the inaugural Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings, thanks to its deep pockets, intellectually engaged students and solid student outcomes. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia University round out the top three. (Subscription required.)

UW-Madison is eyeing a tuition hike for its students who are from out of the state, but UW-Eau Claire is continuing to keep its price tag the same for those from across the border.

University of Wisconsin Colleges are seeing a 12.5 percent decrease in total enrollment this fall. As of Sept. 19, the colleges combined have 10,528 students enrolled. Last fall, that number was 12,044.

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinions,” the sociologist and politico Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “but not to his own facts.” He may have been improving upon a similar if less trenchant remark (“ …but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts”) attributed to the financier Bernard Baruch.

As campuses do more to combat discrimination, students and watchdogs are pushing back with free speech concerns.

Most members of the educated public probably think of America’s greatest universities in terms of undergraduate and professional education—in terms of teaching and the transmission of knowledge rather than the creation of new knowledge. This point of view is completely understandable. They are concerned about the education of their children and grandchildren or relate to their own educational experience.

APPLETON – Cameron Murdoch graduated from Lawrence University in June with a degree in music and about $21,000 in debt.

The site includes tools that allow employers to search what majors exist at each campus, direct links to career services website, and contact information for staff.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is projecting another 3% to 4% drop in enrollment and loss of millions of dollars in tuition revenue this fall, mainly because shifting demographics are producing smaller high school graduating classes in Wisconsin, Chancellor Mark Mone said.

Milwaukee artist Jan Serr and her husband, John Shannon, are giving the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts $1 million to create and operate a multidisciplinary arts studio and performance space at the Kenilworth Square East building, 1915 E. Kenilworth Place.

The much-anticipated annual rankings of “Best Colleges” in America by U.S. News & World Report is out, and colleges recruiting their next class of freshmen are jumping at the chance to tout their spot on the list.

Students and community members continue to voice their concerns about an inappropriate banner hung near the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse campus last week.

Noted: Tuition freeze. Republicans have frozen tuition for four years at University of Wisconsin schools, and Assembly Republicans say they’ll do it again for at least another year. Vos said the freeze could be extended for another year after that but added he would be open to an increase at that point that would match inflation. Assembly Republicans also said they would try to improve the transfer of credits from Wisconsin technical schools to UW schools and work to get more students degrees in four years.

Trigger warnings and safe spaces on college campuses have sparked a debate in the academic community recently, with some universities embracing the concepts while others refuse to support them.

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville is offering a new major in dairy science this fall.

Improving faculty and staff compensation is UW-Stout Chancellor Bob Meyer’s number one priority.Meyer spoke Monday in his opening address to the campus as the school year prepares to kick off.

UW-Milwaukee is being accused of trying to censor the speech of students.

TEMPE, Ariz. – Students at Rollins College in Florida are designing custom “I voted” stickers for absentee voters. The University of Southern California has partnered with county officials to host voter registration events with prizes, games and free food. And at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the student government plans campuswide voter registration drives as well.

The University of Virginia has spent the past decade building an investment fund that now totals $2.2 billion, a pile of money so large that officials say it could finance the entire school and medical center for nine months.

The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire plans to increase enrollment to offer pay raises to faculty and staff. The goal? Stem the tide of employees leaving for higher paying jobs at out-of-state universities.

WAUSAU – University of Wisconsin Marathon County students have lost advisers and administrative support since the state drastically cut UW finding in 2015, but university leaders have a new plan and funding proposal to help students stay on track and better connect to the business community.

Crews have been given the go-ahead to build one of four new dorms at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.