This week, the Universities of Wisconsin announced a slate of budget proposals aimed at boosting the state’s workforce, economy and access to healthcare.
The university system is seeking $240 million for programs that it says would train 300,000 workers and create 2,500 new businesses. Another $90 millionwould go to expand programs for healthcare professionals.
The end of summer is approaching and in the coming weeks, students will begin returning to colleges all across Wisconsin.
Niche, a school rankings website, compiled a list of the top-ranked universities in Wisconsin by analyzing academic, admissions, financial and student life data from the U.S. Department of Education, along with “millions of reviews from students and alumni.
The Universities of Wisconsin unveiled two initiatives Wednesday it says would prepare 300,000 workers for careers, give more than a million workers new skills for better jobs, and create 2,500 new businesses.
Tech for Tomorrow would help universities move new technologies from the research lab to commercialization faster. Accelerate Wisconsin would help entrepreneurs launch businesses and develop new products.
The Universities of Wisconsin wants to train 35,000 new health care professionals over the next decade.
The $90 million proposal will be included in the 2027-29 budget that is presented to the Wisconsin state Legislature and governor in the fall.
The total budget proposal for the state’s public university system will be released next week prior to the Board of Regents meeting, said spokesperson Mark Pitsch.
This back-to-school season, the cost and value of higher education are top of mind.
In a time when going to college can put you in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and as more tech moguls share that they skipped university altogether, it could be worth considering a public school.
A U.S. District Court judge granted a temporary restraining order last week that blocks the U.S. Department of Education from unlawfully terminating congressionally approved school-based mental health grants.
The order in the case joined by the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) and a coalition of 14 state attorneys general came just days before the Department of Education would have begun terminating several grants designed to provide critical mental health services to Wisconsin public school students at the end of July. Terminating the grants would have resulted in the projected loss of $12.5 million to the University of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Aliya Maly had her heart set on attending the University of Portland for a degree in elementary education — until she learned the price tag.
The university had offered on its website to help students cover tuition. But on a campus tour, Maly recalled learning the cost would be $20,000 more than she thought.
Her next choice was the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but she missed a deadline to accept admission. So Maly enrolled at Edgewood University, which offered a better financial aid package with a refund every semester.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison defended its partnership with an organization that encourages people of color to pursue graduate degrees but still canceled it after the Trump administration launched an investigation, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found in recently released records.
Five top administrators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are named in a lawsuit involving former Gov. Scott Walker targeting race-based scholarships.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, Walker’s organization — Young America’s Foundation — and Citizens Defending Liberty filed the suit Monday in Waukesha County Circuit Court.
A conservative legal group celebrated last month when the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled a state grant program aimed at helping students of color attend college was unconstitutional. Now, the group is targeting a similar program for Universities of Wisconsin students.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Waukesha County Circuit Court against five administrators at UW-Madison, including interim Chancellor Eric Wilcots and Provost John Zumbrunnen.
Dr. Michelle Kelly, a pediatric hospitalist at UW Health’s American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison, was disappointed, but not surprised, when she received a notice last week spelling the end of a five-year, roughly $2 million grant from the agency.
The number of Wisconsinites many months behind on student loan bills has risen by nearly 50% since last fall.
That’s according to federal data analyzed by the Associated Press, which found that more than 108,000 people in Wisconsin haven’t made payments on their loans in more than 360 days.
Federal research funding cuts are having “unacceptable” impacts on scientific progress, according to the vice chancellor for research at UW-Madison.
Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska spoke yesterday on a panel in Milwaukee organized by the Wisconsin Technology Council, focused on how shifting federal priorities are impacting innovation in the state.
Proposed changes to how the federal government awards research grants are raising concerns among scientists across the country, including researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who say the changes could affect how medical discoveries are funded for years to come.
The Office of Management and Budget is proposing revisions to the federal rules that govern research grants, a move that has prompted more than 400,000 public comments from researchers, universities, patients and advocacy groups.
UW-Madison researchers are calling the Trump administration’s plan to rewrite the rules for awarding and managing federal grants “catastrophic” and “a dagger to the heart of science.”
Those are among a flood of nearly 500,000 public comments from researchers and higher education groups over the last few months, overwhelmingly opposing the Office of Management and Budget’s proposal released in late May.
UW-Madison’s June water main break that continues to disrupt campus air conditioning has prompted broader concerns from the UW Board of Regents about the aging infrastructure at the state’s 13 public universities.
Several Regents at a virtual meeting Thursday said the Universities of Wisconsin needs to plan for fixing other potentially failing campus infrastructure.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced today that international students will now only be allowed to stay in the United States for four years under their visa.
The new ruling will officially be published in the Federal Register tomorrow, July 17. The ruling guts a 1978 policy, known as ‘duration of status,’ that allowed international college and university students to stay in the U.S. until their program ended.
UW Board of Regents members shared grievances about now-ousted Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman in text messages and emails in the months leading up to his firing, according to recently released records.
The Regents fired Rothman on April 7 over a loss of confidence in his leadership. The clashes first became public after someone leaked a March 26 letter to The Associated Press that Rothman wrote to Regents leaders, in which he said board leadership told him he had to retire or resign, or they would fire him.
Many University of Wisconsin Board of Regents members privately complained to each other in text messages about UW system president Jay Rothman in the months leading up to his ouster, according to newly released records.
Board President Amy Bogost and board member Timothy Nixon described some of the problems the board had with Rothman during a legislative hearing in April, but the nearly 500 pages of records recently obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reveal a much deeper divide between Rothman and the board than was previously known.
UW Board of Regents member Jack Salzwedel has stepped down from the board, five years before his term ends, citing family medical issues.
Molly Reinhard, director of UW-Madison’s center that advises students aspiring to work in health and law professions, said the changes will affect students through their school selection decisions, career progression and housing.
After UW-Madison named a new athletic director on Wednesday, all eyes are turning to the university’s other vacant leadership position: chancellor.
More than 20 buildings on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus are locked on Tuesday as crews work to address air conditioning issues caused by a broken chilled water line.
Meanwhile, university records are raising new questions about the state of UW-Madison’s infrastructure.
Employees at Wisconsin’s public universities will get a 2% increase in their wages starting this month, and thousands of faculty members in high-demand fields have received salary raises.
The Madison Metropolitan School District is celebrating its inaugural Grow Your Own to Teacher Program.
The initiative inaugural cohort completes associate degrees at Madison College and prepares to continue towards teacher licenses through the UW-Madison School of Education.
Katie Aglione, 22, just finished her first year of UW-Madison’s two-year nursing program. This follows two years of prerequisite classes that studentshave to complete before spending the second half of their bachelor’s program focused on clinical skills and hands-on training.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison law school made misleading statements to The College Fix about its plans to remove a racially discriminatory fellowship description.
As previously reported, a third-party database advertised a law school faculty fellowship as targeted for “candidates of color.” After being pressed for answers, Associate Director of Communications Jennie Broecker told The Fix on May 15 she would ask ProFellow to update the listing.
The Universities of Wisconsin’s search for UW-Madison’s next chancellor is kicking off with public input sessions starting next week.
The 23-member committee leading the search to identify former Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin’s successor will gather feedback from the faculty, staff, students and the public on Monday and June 22 at two listening sessions, the university announced Tuesday.
Here is what Milwaukee community members said as a statewide listening tour kicked off at UWM.
Aid for childcare providers is expiring, the Universities of Wisconsin raises tuition, and the state reaches a $10 million PFAS settlement — Inside Wisconsin Politics reviews a busy start to summer.
A new report from the University of Wisconsin says tuition in the state is actually too low.
UW regents last week voted for a 2% tuition increase across the UW System, but the report from the university’s Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy said that tuition increase is modest at best.
The University of Wisconsin board has approved a tuition increase of 2% for the 2026-2027 academic year. That decision has some lawmakers in disagreement.
UW-Madison’s new chancellor will be stepping onto campus within the next year.
The search is underway after Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin left UW-Madison in May to lead Columbia University, closing a four-year tenure marked by the growth of the university’s research enterprise, historic enrollment, federal policy changes and several controversial high-profile decisions.
The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents approved a proposal to increase resident undergraduate tuition by 2 percent for the 2026–27 academic year.
“This 2 percent tuition increase represents a balanced and measured approach to addressing the rising costs our UW universities face,” said Regent President Amy B. Bogost.
The decision, by a vote of 15-1, comes after several years of significant financial restructuring across UW universities, including reductions in structural deficits, operational changes, and campus-level cost containment efforts designed to strengthen long-term financial stability.
In-state students will once again pay a higher tuition rate to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison — but their cost remains lower than at peer schools.
On Thursday, the UW system’s Board of Regents approved a 2% tuition increase for resident undergraduates next school year. Tim Nixon was the only regent to vote against the measure.
“We’ve increased tuition four years in a row. I personally have not been provided with sufficient information to believe it is again necessary. No matter how reasonable the increase, the burden on students, parents and the public is real,” Nixon said at the board’s meeting at UW-Milwaukee.
Several Republican lawmakers are upset with the University of Wisconsin System’s proposal to increase tuition by 2% a year after a 5% increase.
Sen. Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point, went as far as saying that a pair of trustees “lied to all our faces” in committee testimony when they said that tuition would not be raised again this soon.
“Unfortunately, students and their families are the ones who will be paying the price for this dishonesty,” Testin said in a statement. “At least we now know that we can no longer take the UW Board of Regents at their word.
Students, faculty and staff could learn by fall who will become the next leader of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“We hope to have a new chancellor named … by the end of the calendar year, at the latest,” Jason Beier, who oversees human resources for the broader UW system, recently told a group tasked with finding Jennifer Mnookin’s replacement.
Tuition for in-state students on Universities of Wisconsin campuses may increase again this fall.
The UW Board of Regents will vote Thursday on whether to raise tuition for in-state undergraduate students by 2% for the 2026-27 academic year.
If the plan is approved, in-state students at UW-Madison will pay $210 more next fall, or $10,716 total, and out-of-state students will see a 4% tuition increase, or about $1,701, raising the total to $44,232.
Within just the past two years, two-thirds of the universities in the Big Ten Conference have had a change in presidential leadership. Counting system heads and the leaders of flagship campuses, 12 of the 18 member institutions have seen turnover at the top since the start of 2025.
UW-Madison is anticipating a smaller cohort of international graduate students on campus next fall, according to the university’s director of the graduate school.
Dean of the Graduate School William Karpus said at a campus meeting last week that fewer international students have applied to graduate programs, and the university has also admitted a smaller number than in previous years for next fall.
College students might imagine many nightmare scenarios during finals week:
But what if these horrors weren’t yours alone? What if all students and their professors found themselves living a shared nightmare at the worst possible time?
Universities across the country have wound down their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in recent years, following criticism of the programs’ patterns of racial discrimination and compelled speech. In some cases, DEI roles were not removed but simply renamed and moved to other departments. In fact, a recent Inside Higher Ed survey found that 43 percent of universities have rebranded their DEI initiatives. The names change; the agenda remains the same.
The term “moonshot” most often reminds people of the Apollo space program that first landed astronauts on the moon in 1969 or April’s Artemis II mission, which was the first crewed flight beyond Earth’s orbit since 1972.
Devesh Ranjan, the new dean of UW-Madison’s College of Engineering, is hoping people will also associate “moonshots” with lofty research goals in the coming decade.
The University of Wisconsin system is moving forward with its search for a new system president as state lawmakers remain interested in why the opening exists.
The Board of Regents named UW-Superior Chancellor Renee Wachter the interim president while naming a presidential search committee that will be led by Regent Ashok Rai.
UW Madison hosted its first commencement ceremony of the year for doctoral, MFA and medical students on May 8.
Honorary degree recipient and UW graduate Speaker Tia Nelson spoke about her work in conservation and environmental protection. “The most complex problems we face will take more than persistence. They will take people with the courage to try something new,” Nelson said.
For the first time in 40 years, UW-Madison is launching a new college.
The university has named Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau as the founding dean of the College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence, set to officially open on July 1.
As artificial intelligence continues to grow, so do its criticisms.
Being a student at any age is a challenge, but returning to college as an adult with a job, caretaking roles and other responsibilities requires a special kind of balancing act.
Leslie Wright knows this all too well. After an attempt at college in the 1990s, she left and later earned her associate degree. Wright entered the workforce but stepped away to raise children. Through volunteer work and as a school board member in Oregon, she saw a need for mental health support in schools. She overcame obstacles to go back to school, and she’ll finish her bachelor’s in psychology this summer.
University of Wisconsin-Madison and the rest of the UW campuses are part of a nationwide outage of Canvas – an online platform used for assignments, grading and more – that is causing disruptions to final exams.
A group of former University of Wisconsin officials and one lawmaker said better communication is key to building trust among Wisconsinites and overcoming disinvestment in the university as federal and state funding declines.
More than half of college students use artificial intelligence daily or weekly for schoolwork, according to new data from Gallup and the Lumina Foundation.
The Class of 2026 is the first to have had AI chatbots available throughout their four years of college.
The first dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s new College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence says the institution will be a vital non-industry leader shaping the future of AI.
Officials at the public flagship said in a recent court filing that the university may have to lay off up to 160 employees if it doesn’t get clarity on federal funding in the near future, The Cap Times reported.
At issue is an effort by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to impose conditions on financial disbursements. USDA has asked states to agree to conditions to continue receiving funding, including ensuring federal money won’t be used to “promote gender ideology” or diversity, equity and inclusion practices. In March, 21 states sued the USDA over the preconditions; though UW Madison is not a plaintiff, the state of Wisconsin is.
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On June 1, Maria Woldt will become the third director of the Dairy Innovation Hub, a state-funded initiative that brings together scientists, farmers, businesses, and educators to explore new ideas to ensure Wisconsin’s $52.8 billion dairy sector remains globally competitive while advancing economic, environmental, and social sustainability.
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Nearly 550 faculty members at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are set to receive pay raises this month as part of efforts to attract and retain faculty in high-demand fields of study.
State lawmakers provided $27 million annually and created an annual appropriation to the UW system in the current state budget for the compensation. Over 2,300 faculty members across the state’s 13 public universities are receiving raises through the funding, said Mark Pitsch, a UW system spokesperson.
The chancellor is leaving.
The president got fired.
The athletic director jumped before he could be pushed.
That’s a lot of turnover at the top for UW-Madison and the 13-campus Universities of Wisconsin. It’s also an opportunity to reset priorities for higher education in Madison and across the state. The Regents and others who will help fill these jobs need to get this right.
The Universities of Wisconsin has launched a national search to identify UW-Madison’s next chancellor.
Acting UW system head Chris Patton and UW Board of Regents President Amy Bogost appointed a group of 23 faculty, staff, students and people from the Madison area to identify UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin’s successor.
President Donald Trump’s dismissal on Friday of the independent board that advises the National Science Foundation included UW-Madison’s top research leader.
Vice Chancellor for Research Dorota Grejner-Brzezińska was one of the 22 current members on the board that advises Congress and the president on the National Science Foundation’s operations. President Joe Biden appointed her in 2023 when she was working at Ohio State University.
If University of Wisconsin-Madison administrators don’t get more clarity on new federal funding rules soon, the university’s Division of Extension may lay off up to 160 employees.
Vice Chancellor Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, who oversees UW-Madison’s $1.93 billion research operation, recently outlined that concern in a court declaration filed as part of a broader lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The University of Wisconsin–Madison has named Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau founding dean of the College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence as the university prepares to launch the new college July 1.
