If legislators truly want viewpoint diversity and top talent to help Wisconsin citizens earn a college degree and achieve a better future, they should begin by paying UW System faculty at least an average salary. Not by cutting the UW System budget even more than they have already.
The University of Wisconsin–Madison has reportedly approved doling out $136,000 to fund a group that provides sexual programming, including a 90-minute “Ethical Porn” session for students.
The approved budget for the FY 2026 budget says that the Sex Out Loud club, billed as a “peer to peer sexual health resource,” requested $136,475 for 2025–2026 and was approved to receive $135,706.5
The Marquette survey also found most respondents favor keeping funding for state universities flat or reducing it. Among all registered voters, 49 percent said Universities of Wisconsin funding should be kept the same, 27 percent said it should be increased and 23 percent said funding should be reduced.
While the UW system requested an $855 million increase in state funding in its budget request, Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly have endorsed cutting it by $87 million over the next two years.
Jack Brown is starting his first head coaching job at a time when those involved in Olympic sports are taking a closer look at their place in the NCAA ecosystem.
Brown, who’s less than a month into his role leading the combined men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams at the University of Wisconsin, understands that his sport doesn’t bring much revenue to the athletic department. The Badgers are scheduled to host only three meets in the 2025-26 season at the 1,200-seat Soderholm Family Aquatic Center.
And it appears any increase in state aid for Universities of Wisconsin campuses will be a hard sell. Across the board, 49% support keeping funding steady, with only a slight majority of Democrats favoring increasing state aid.
The UW system and Evers asked for an increase of $856 million for the next budget, but Republicans last week hinted they were considering an $87 million cut. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have said the other sides’ proposals are non-starters for them.
Former University of Wisconsin football player Nate White has died.
Details of White’s death have not yet been released. White’s death was confirmed to BadgerExtra by an official at South Dakota State, the program White transferred to in January. White was in Brookings, South Dakota, at the time of his death, the official confirmed.
Nate White, former Wisconsin Badgers football player and Milwaukee Rufus King graduate, has died. He was 20 years old.
The UW athletic department announced the news in social media posts. Details of the circumstances of White’s death weren’t immediately available. His current program, South Dakota State University, told media outlets that he died in Brookings, South Dakota. No other information was immediately available.
Evers said discussions about the funding for the University of Wisconsin had included “a positive number” though he wouldn’t go into details. Last week, Vos said his caucus intended to cut $87 million from the UW system.
Wisconsin’s claim is that the University of Miami broke the law by tampering with a player, Xavier Lucas, who was under a financial contract with UW.
The University of Wisconsin System has seen an increase of staff and salaries over the past 10 years while student enrollment has dropped by 16,000, according to an audit released by the chairs of the state audit committee.
Academic staff grew 33.4% with a 97.4% increase in salary costs over that time while limited appointees rose 39% with a 78.3% increase in salary costs.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration had delayed grant review meetings at the National Institutes of Health and was calling for sweeping cuts to university research dollars. This left faculty scientists with limited funds to offer students.
Even though many of the review meetings are proceeding again, Wisconsin researchers said those delays have lingering effects. One of these is that fewer graduate trainees will be arriving on campus this fall.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison enrolled almost 8,000 international students during its fall semester last year. As of January, about 925 international students were enrolled in Edgewood College’s graduate programs, primarily online, and around 20 were studying on campus as undergraduates. Around 200 international students are enrolled at Madison College, too.
Advocates for higher education say it’s the wrong time for lawmakers to be considering a funding cut for Wisconsin’s university system.
Republicans in the state Assembly are floating the idea of slashing $87 million from the Universities of Wisconsin as part of the biennial budget. Last week, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos told reporters that he supports the cut, citing concerns about “too much political correctness” within the university system.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW-Milwaukee are cutting costs over the next school year amid financial uncertainty at the federal and state level.
UW-Madison told schools and colleges to shave 5% of their 2026 budget. The administration and other units must trim 7%. Some exceptions may apply depending on a division’s financial circumstances.
Written by Anthony Hernandez, a faculty member in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin—Madison (UW-Madison) who received a research award from the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation for his study on leadership in Hispanic-Serving Institutions.
University of Wisconsin-Madison schools and colleges will reduce their base budgets by 5%, and administrative units will reduce their budgets by 7% amid federal reductions and uncertainties about state funding, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin announced Monday.
Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin noted in a Monday message to UW–Madison faculty and staff that both the above issues factored into the base budget reductions of 5% that schools and colleges will be required to implement for next school year. Administrative and all other units that receive 101 funds will reduce their fund 101 base budgets by 7%.
In the three years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended federal protections for abortion access, Stadler has watched as other students have left medical school — disenchanted with the state of reproductive care and the medical system in America.
UW-Madison announced on Monday that schools and colleges will be required to cut their budgets by 5% of their allocation in fiscal year 2026.
Deans and vice chancellors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will have to make tough choices in the coming weeks. University leadership on Monday announced budget cuts for the next financial year.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is cutting its budget due to ongoing financial uncertainties stemming from changes to federal funding.
Schools and colleges will face a 5% base budget cut for fiscal year 2026, while administrative units will see a 7% reduction. These cuts are part of efforts to protect the university’s financial viability amid risks like potential federal funding changes and grant terminations.
UW-Madison leaders are telling all departments to reduce their budgets by at least 5% amid a flurry of federal changes shaking up higher education and now further uncertainty surrounding the state’s budget.
Former UW-La Crosse chancellor Joe Gow has a trial date set for his case against the Universities of Wisconsin system and UW-La Crosse leaders.
Pretrial conferences begin June 9, 2026, with the full trial starting June 22. Court documents entered last month suggest the trial will last for five days.
Facing funding cuts from the Trump administration and uncertainty from the Wisconsin Legislature, the leader of the state’s flagship university directed all departments Monday to cut their budgets between 5 percent and 7 percent next year.
While the program was set to end in January 2024, Evers kept it afloat with emergency funding through June 2025.Evers has never vetoed the state budget in full, but he has threatened to do so in previous years over issues like funding cuts for the University of Wisconsin System.Evers said negotiations over UW System funding levels this year are going in the “right direction” but didn’t reveal specifics, other than, “it’s a positive number.” Last week, Vos confirmed his caucus would support an $87 million cut.
Sophie Pokela just graduated from the University of Wisconsin with an English degree — and a rigorous education in nutrition.
Pokela grew up thinking she was a healthy eater because she mostly chose foods packed with protein and fiber. It dawned on her a year into college that she didn’t actually know much about what she was consuming.
The University of Wisconsin and its athletics collective are challenging another school’s alleged poaching of a football player the Badgers had under contract.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association penalized the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s football program last week, citing recruiting violations from spring of 2023.
Many might have seen this coming. The Miami Hurricanes are being sued by the University of Wisconsin over Xavier Lucas and how he was brought to Coral Gables.
The Xavier Lucas saga is far from over.
Yahoo Sports reported June 20 that the University of Wisconsin and its NIL collective, the Varsity Collective, are suing the University of Miami for what is termed tortious interference with the former Badgers cornerback who is now a part of the Miami Hurricanes football team.
Some of the most important political coalitions for Democrats emerge on this map, especially in comparison with 2000. The 2024 map shows the birth of Democratic vote powerhouses in majority-Black DeKalb and Clayton counties in Georgia and in Wisconsin’s Dane County, home of Madison and the University of Wisconsin, with its heavily white and college degree-holding population. Both coalitions are essential to Democratic wins in those states in recent elections.
When I approached graduation from Lake Forest College, I felt lost. How could I blend my passions into a career? I found the answer during a research internship at Rush University on a project funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease. Today, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I am a doctoral candidate in epidemiology, the field that works to understand and reduce disease. My research and training are largely supported by the National Cancer Institute.
The leader of Wisconsin’s 13 public universities said without additional funding in the next state budget, he expects more branch campus closures, decreased affordability for students, layoffs and program cuts.
“All of which will hit hardest at our most vulnerable UWs,” Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman said on social media this week.
One in four Wisconsin child care providers could close their doors if the state support for centers ends in June, according to a survey of child care providers commissioned by the state Department of Children and Families (DCF) and produced by the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Assembly GOP leaders said they’ve had “productive conversations towards a budget that cuts taxes, puts more money into K-12 schools to stave off higher property taxes, and funds childcare and the university system in exchange for meaningful reforms.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said his caucus supports cutting $87 million from the UW system, but wouldn’t say if that’s the final proposal the budget committee will take up. The system has said it needs additional funding and Evers had requested $855 million in his proposal for it. Vos says Republicans want “reform” of the UW for the “broken process that we currently have.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told reporters Wednesday afternoon the Republican caucus supports a roughly $80 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System budget, saying the reform is needed to fix the “broken” process currently in place.
The Morgridge Institute for Research, or MIR, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has always been a bit of a mystery to me, and not just because the scientific research that goes on there exceeds my limited grasp of biology, chemistry and physics. (Or the fact that the building it shares with the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, or WID, is at the nearly-impossible-to-navigate intersection of University Avenue, Campus Drive, North Randall Avenue and North Orchard Street.)
Republicans who control the state Legislature are considering cutting funding to the University of Wisconsin System by $87 million as they build a new two-year state budget that may require Democratic votes to pass.
Republicans on the Legislature’s budget committee may deal the Universities of Wisconsin the system’s biggest cut in nearly a decade, to the tune of $87 million.
The cut was first reported by Civic Media on Monday night. By contrast, the UW system had requested an increase in state aid of $856 million. The committee had been slated to take up the UW system’s budget on Tuesday but punted it for unspecified reasons.
GOP lawmakers also delayed a vote on the Universities of Wisconsin budget which had been scheduled for Tuesday. Evers’ budget called for about a $700 million increase in state funding for the UW system.
Democratic lawmakers told reporters Tuesday they’d heard Republicans were considering cutting funds to the UW system. The GOP cochairs of the budget committee did not comment when asked about that prospect.
Lawmakers writing the state budget delayed a vote on the University of Wisconsin System, with Republican legislative leaders declining to explain why.
Committee co-chairs Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, and Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, wouldn’t elaborate on why the vote was pulled from the June 17 schedule.
Wisconsin’s two tribal colleges could face existential cuts under a Trump administration proposal to reduce funding by nearly 90%.
The colleges are located in rural areas of northern Wisconsin and together enroll about 600 students, many of whom would not attend a traditional institution in the colleges’ absence for financial, logistical and cultural reasons. The College of Menominee Nation is about 45 miles northwest of Green Bay. Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University is 100 miles north of Eau Claire.
The latest shift for McIntosh and his department came June 6 when federal judge Claudia Wilken signed off on the settlement of the House v. NCAA antitrust lawsuits, a decision that opened the door for schools sharing revenue with their athletes, sets roster limits, and enacts additional oversight over athletes’ commercial NIL agreements. McIntosh — who testified in front of a Congressional subcommittee on March 11 on the House settlement and the state of college sports — said the settlement laid out the path to what college sports leaders want.
The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program through TRIO helped me earn my Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and led to my becoming dean of the Dougherty Family College (DFC) at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. DFC is a mentoring student-focused two-year college, and I have incorporated my research and experiences in TRIO programs into the college’s design.
Neurosurgeon and professor Mahua Dey is concerned her team’s effort to develop a glioblastoma vaccine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison could stall as sweeping actions by the Trump administration to curb federal health funding trickle down to individual labs.
Reached on June 16, Kapenga told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he looked at a few security systems after the 2023 incident and put together a proposal to implement a weapons detection system used by the University of Wisconsin.
“There was not enough support in my caucus to get that put in place, unfortunately, but I hope this opens their eyes to the real, unfortunate threat that’s out there,” Kapenga said. “We live in a different world.”
The University of Wisconsin athletic department was involved in seven NCAA major infractions cases in a 20-year stretch from the early 1980s to the early 2000s.
The NCAA punished the Badgers for illegal recruiting tactics, car rides and payments as well as the actions of boosters. The violations led to administrative changes within the athletic department to ensure compliance with regulations.
When Ava You applied to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she looked to see if she could major in Korean.
“Honestly, I was a little disappointed considering they had a Chinese and a Japanese major already, but not Korean,” said You, an incoming sophomore at the flagship campus.
That will soon change when UW-Madison introduces a bachelor’s degree in Korean Language and Culture this fall. The Board of Regents, which oversees UW-Madison and the state’s 12 public universities, granted final approval this month. UW-Madison will be the first school in the Universities of Wisconsin to offer an undergraduate program in Korean.
Written by Hanns Kuttner, a guest essayist to Madison Magazine.
Evers said in a statement that he had agreed to support Republicans’ half of the deal including their top tax priorities, while Republicans could not reach consensus within their caucuses to back the governor’s proposals, including funding increases for K-12 education, child care and the University of Wisconsin System.
An Evers spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the June 12 vote.
Jennifer Mnookin stands to earn an extra $150,000 if she stays in her role at the helm of the University of Wisconsin-Madison through the end of the month.
The Board of Regents, which oversees UW-Madison and the state’s 12 other public universities, approved the “retention incentive” for Mnookin last summer. The goal was to create “continuity at our flagship university where total compensation is not competitive with its peers,” UW system spokesperson Mark Pitsch said at the time.
Major college athletic departments can now pay their student-athletes directly but also must comply with more stringent rules for NIL deals and adhere to uniform guidelines for roster sizes.
At Wisconsin the job will be to adjust to those changes while managing an athletic program that features 11 men’s and 12 women’s teams and attempting to maintain the standards of an athletic program that has been pretty competitive across the board.
While the daycare dilemma is large and complex, colleges have a unique role. Student parents (and faculty and staff) can be supported with resources by the university. Tuition paid by students should cover the costs of child care, if provided on campus.
According to an analysis by the American Council on Education, nearly one in every five undergraduate college students, about 18%, are parents, typically to preschool-aged or younger. In Wisconsin alone, 22% of all undergrads are single moms.
In some states, public universities have a history of being mandated by their state government to buy prison made furniture. According to the 2020, Inside Higher Ed report, University of Wisconsin campuses have in the past been required to purchase from Badger State Industries, Wisconsin’s prison labor enterprise.
UW-Parkside is gutting its current college structure and will put all programs under a single college as it contends with continued enrollment declines and budget shortfalls.
If implemented, the policy change being proposed could impact 30% of the UW system’s offerings, as a third-party audit by Deloitte from late last year found that about 200 of nearly 650 programs analyzed are in the low-enrollment category. UW system spokesperson Mark Pitsch said the percentage of low-enrollment programs is closer to 10%, based on UW system’s calculation that differs from Deloitte’s.
More than 10,000 Wisconsin high school seniors accepted fall 2025 admission to a Universities of Wisconsin campus via the state’s new Direct Admit program, system administrators revealed to the UW Board of Regents.That’s about 43% of the Wisconsin high school seniors who got one of the automatic admissions letters the system sent out last summer.
Facing an uncertain financial future, the University of Wisconsin-Parkside is merging its four academic colleges into a single college led by one leadership team.
Charles Isbell Jr. will leave the University of Wisconsin-Madison after serving for less than two years as provost.
Isbell was named Thursday as the new chancellor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and vice president of the University of Illinois System. He is set to start July 16.
