After staving off closure last year following a multimillion dollar budget shortfall and seriously declining student enrollment, Ashland’s Northland College last week announced this semester will be its last.
West Virginia University made headlines in 2023 for axing a swath of tenured faculty, followed by the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and Western Illinois University.
A major cut in federal funding for medical research, announced by the Trump administration this month, would harm efforts at UW-Madison to better treat cancer, diabetes and heart disease, university officials said.
UW-Madison is balking at a key lawmaker’s claim that the university has broken its promise to establish an endowed professorship focusing on conservative politics or thought.
The federal education department abruptly ended a University of Wisconsin-Madison grant that pays for students to train as special education teachers in Milwaukee Public Schools classrooms.
Jay Rothman interview with WISC-TV on the state budget bill introduced this week by Gov. Evers.
Donald Downs is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Wisconsin. He co-founded the Academic Freedom Alliance, a nonprofit that defends the rights of professors to speak, teach and publish without interference. He said courts aren’t the right place to settle grade disputes.
“These are matters of academic freedom and it’s usually best leave it up to the professors, because they’re the ones who know the subject,” Downs said. “If you take it out of their hands, then who’s going to do it? Our position is a strong presumption in favor of the faculty members’ academic right to have discretion over grades.”
The closure of Northland College at the end of this school year has left hundreds of students and employees with questions about what their futures may hold.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison — the sixth largest research university in the country — this cap would translate into an annual loss of approximately $65 million in research funding. The nationwide impact is even more staggering, amounting to billions of dollars in cuts for institutions that rely on NIH grants to support their research infrastructure. The hardest hit area would be indirect costs, or Facilities and Administrative (F&A) costs, funds that cover essential expenses like laboratory equipment, research facilities and staff salaries.
Financially troubled Northland College will close at the end of the school year.
The college Board of Trustees announced the closing Wednesday. The small liberal arts college in Ashland has been facing a possible shut-down since early 2024. Last March, school leaders said they would need to raise millions of dollars to stay open.
Additionally, the district’s M-Cubed program is helping high school students start teaching degrees. A new partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison pays prospective special education teachers.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the nation’s top research institutions, are wary of potential cuts to funding under the Trump administration that they warn could slow their work and delay new treatments for cancer and other diseases.
Written by Xueli Wang, the Barbara and Glenn Thompson Endowed Professor in Educational Leadership at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. With a focus on community colleges and postsecondary STEM education, her research examines educational practices, structures and policies that promote students’ holistic well-being and equitable access, experiences and outcomes.
The future of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s diversity-based scholarships are in doubt after a U.S. Department of Education decision Friday ordered schools to eliminate race-based programs.
Northland College, a private, liberal arts college in Ashland, just miles from Lake Superior, is closing its doors at the end of the school year, its board of trustees announced Wednesday.
With district officials poised to reject the proposal, McKenzie is pursuing a charter agreement with the UW Office of Educational Opportunity. UW will make its decision by May.
For many University of Wisconsin-Madison students, the beginning of September is a time to reacclimate themselves to Madison before classes start and take advantage of the remainder of summer to enjoy campus. But some say the first day of classes, usually the middle of the week after Labor Day, arrives too late.
The governor’s budget proposal would increase K-12 spending by a substantial $3.15 billion, in addition to more than $850 million for the Universities of Wisconsin System. A child care subsidy, previously subsidized by the federal government, would be paid for by $480 million in state funds under Evers’ plan.
For higher education, Evers proposed $856 million for the University of Wisconsin System, in line with the agency’s request. That includes an about $40 million scholarship program to benefit around 5,000 students whose families have an income less than the state median.
Evers proposed $856 million in new operational funding for the UW system, more than the $800 million he pledged to the UW Board of Regents last August. His proposed budget also includes $60 million in new state aid for Wisconsin’s technical college system, $10 million of which is meant to support the 16 two-year colleges in investing in artificial intelligence.
UW-Madison and its fellow Universities of Wisconsin schools are reviewing the guidance, spokespeople said in statements to the Wisconsin State Journal. UW system spokesperson Mark Pitsch said they expect there will be further guidance from the Department of Education.
On Tuesday, Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman announced UW-Whitewater’s provost and former interim chancellor John Chenoweth would lead UW-River Falls on a temporary basis starting March 1. Chenoweth will replace Michael Martin, who took on the position in an interim status in September following the retirement of Chancellor Maria Gallo.
In June, the governor said he wanted to see an additional $856 million go to the Universities of Wisconsin. Evers said the next state spending plan is a “make-or-break budget for our UW campuses.”
Evers will ask the Legislature to approve an additional $856 million in funding for the University of Wisconsin System, the largest two-year increase in history.
The University of Wisconsin System has temporarily paused the release of an updated copyright policy that would broaden the amount of intellectual property the university can claim from academic staff after faculty criticism.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison became interested in this topic because they wanted to understand a puzzling contradiction. On one hand, many people express support for diversity and inclusion. On the other hand, discrimination and exclusion remain persistent problems in society. The researchers wondered if part of the problem might stem from inaccurate perceptions of what others believe.
The study, “Diversity and inclusion have greater support than most Americans think,” was authored by Naomi Isenberg and Markus Brauer.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents unanimously approved a compromise policy change Feb. 7 giving UW System President Jay Rothman more power to appoint top leaders while retaining some regent involvement.
University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health Dean Robert Golden discusses impacts of a Trump administration action to shift National Institutes of Health rules for research funds.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is a key partner for USAID’s Feed the Future Innovation Lab, helping train agricultural researchers around the world and research new seeds. In the past decade, Feed the Future has reduced hunger and poverty by 20 to 25 percent in targeted areas, with over 6 million producers newly using better agricultural practices in 2023 alone.
Of course, these innovations not only support communities abroad, but can also be put to use right in UW-Madison’s backyard to make farmers more resilient to increasing hazards such as heatwaves and extreme precipitation.
A group of students who work on campus at Beloit College are encouraging their classmates and coworkers to sign on to a union effort. Administrators are hoping to channel the effort into a learning opportunity and expressing caution about changes to pay.
“We really rely on NIH funding,” Jon Audhya, a professor and associate dean at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health said. “That reduction would have a huge negative impact on the institution. The university really couldn’t fill the gap.”
American universities are spending far too much on consulting firms. Recent investigations reveal staggering numbers: $51 million at the University of Wisconsin, $4.7 million at the University of Florida, and similar seven- and eight-figure contracts across the nation.
Andrew Reschovsky, a professor emeritus of public affairs at UW-Madison, said sometimes it makes sense for a state agency to contract out services when it doesn’t have the staff or knowledge for the work. Without the outcome of cost-benefit analyses or other information, it is impossible to know when contracting out makes sense without querying each agency, he said.
“We really rely on NIH funding,” Jon Audhya, a professor and associate dean at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health said. “That reduction would have a huge negative impact on the institution. The university really couldn’t fill the gap.”
University of Wisconsin System Chief Information Officer Steven Hopper said Workday’s implementation will be smooth and will create a foundation for growth.
On Monday, higher education groups joined an association of public universities with schools in states that supported Trump in last year’s election to file their own legal challenge that described $65 million in losses for the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a 70 percent reduction in funding for the University of Florida.
These up-front losses generate much greater future value of nonmonetary as well as monetary kinds. Look at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Harvard University, et al. in Table 22 above. The sector spent nearly $28 billion of its own money generously subsidizing sponsors’ research, including by subsidizing the federal government itself.
Two Republicans who chair state legislative committees on energy and utilities say they want to bring more nuclear power online in Wisconsin in the coming years.
To start that effort, they introduced a resolution calling on the Legislature to publicly support nuclear power and fusion energy.
The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh is selling its previous Campus Center for Equity and Diversity building following the state legislature’s DEI reconstruction decision.
The Office of Children’s Mental Health released new recommendations this week for students, parents and colleges to improve mental health and sense of belonging on campus.
Last year, an analysis released by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau found most state agencies and University of Wisconsin institutions allowed employees to work from home up to five days a week and one-third or less of workstations in state offices were being used during auditors’ visits.
Based on six visits to 15 agencies and University of Wisconsin System offices between July and August 2023, the highest percentage of workstations being used was 34.5% at the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance. The audit was released in December 2023.
“This executive order raises a lot of issues over who really controls public education,” said Suzanne Eckes, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor whose work focuses on K-12 legal issues and school policy. Public education has historically been a state and school board function, she said.
“Typically, the federal government isn’t saying, ‘You’re going to do this social studies curriculum, and you’re going to use this book, and everybody in the United States is going to learn about slavery or World War I or the American Revolution in this way,'” said Eckes, speaking from her perspective and not as a representative of the University of Wisconsin.
“It basically literally means we are stepping back in time decades, that we are now gonna look at data on CDs, they’re gonna be mailed out across the country instead of stored securely in an online data platform,” said Taylor Odle, an assistant professor of education policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies college access and success. “It’s gonna be a huge waste of my time and a huge waste of the department’s time to have to process all of these new applications.”
The $4.7 million in recently approved funds will go toward two projects, one at UW-Stevens Point and one at UW-Madison. At UW-Stevens Point, they’ll replace emergency generators which are “undersized to provide adequate capacity,” and at UW-Madison, they’ll replace electrical distribution equipment at the West Campus Electrical Substation owned by both UW-Madison and Madison Gas & Electric.
“Cutting the rate to 15% will destroy science in the United States,” says Jo Handelsman, who runs the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “This change will break our universities, our medical centers and the entire engine for scientific discovery.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison said the decision to cut National Institutes of Health funding, or NIH, will “significantly disrupt vital research activity and delay lifesaving discoveries and cures related to cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and much more.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison put out a statement arguing the new indirect cost cap will “significantly disrupt vital research activity and daily life-saving discoveries.” It added that the move will also “have an inevitable impact on student opportunities to engage in research activities.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison, in a statement: “This proposed change to NIH funding – UW–Madison’s largest source of federal support – will significantly disrupt vital research activity and delay lifesaving discoveries and cures related to cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and much more.
“In addition, these reductions will have an inevitable impact on student opportunities to engage in research activities, from undergraduates to Ph.D. and medical students. Medical innovation will be slowed, delaying the creation of new treatments, new technologies, and new health workers.”
Dr. Robert Golden, the dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said indirect costs aren’t just administrative tasks, or “waste,” but the physical structures and equipment needed to do “top tier” research.
“I’ve been at several public institutions, including the NIH early in my career, and never saw waste to a striking degree,” he said. The NIH’s change, Golden said, “will have a profound significant impact on everything,” including utility charges, building out the laboratories where scientific experiments are done and finding cures for patients.
Afederal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a Trump Administration cap on federally funded medical research that UW-Madison said Monday could cost the the university $65 million in already-pledged funds.
A federal judge last month blocked efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to halt the flow of billions of federal dollars. Wisconsin officials worried the freeze would have wide-ranging effects, including at the state’s flagship university.
Then over the weekend, the National Institutes of Health announced a “dramatic” cut in funding for some research expenses at UW-Madison and other institutions, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin and other university leaders said in a statement.
St. Norbert — a small liberal arts college in the Green Bay suburb of De Pere — is planning to eliminate about a dozen majors and to restructure a handful more as it contends with an anticipated $7 million budget gap for 2026.
The University of Wisconsin System has eliminated a mandatory search committee process for some of its senior leadership positions that critics say will reduce transparency.
The UW System is asking for roughly $855 million over two years from the state and urged support for that funding during a discussion with members of the Hoan Group, a private group of about 160 business and community members in the Milwaukee and Madison area.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the nation’s top research institutions, says National Institutes of Health funding cuts will “significantly disrupt vital research activity and delay lifesaving discoveries and cures” for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and more.
Changes to federal funding directly impacts Wisconsin’s largest university. The National Institutes of Health is reducing the rate for its “indirect costs” grants to 15%, which goes into effect on February 10.
The UW Board of Regents unanimously approved a rare policy compromise Friday that grants Universities of Wisconsin presidents more appointment authority but also gives Regents a larger role in the process than current President Jay Rothman had requested.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents discussed fraud and legal risks based on an internal audit and passed resolutions for a new AI major and funds for maintenance at today’s meeting.
UW-Madison will experience significant disruptions to lifesaving research under the Trump administration’s new rules for federally funded medical research, officials said Saturday.
