Category: Higher Education/System

The long-time federal Perkins Loan Program for college and university students expired at the end of September after a two-year extension in 2015. Higher education officials fear the end of the program could mean a gap in financial aid for low-income students.

University of Wisconsin-Superior students protested Monday on campus in response to the administration’s decision last week to suspend 25 programs.

City leaders are officially asking the University of Wisconsin System to merge UW-Sheboygan with UW-Milwaukee instead of UW-Green Bay.

The idea first came up last month, and Common Council members voted Monday night to approve a resolution offering the recommendation, which would come as System leaders prepare soon to take up a proposal aimed at reorganizing the state’s public universities and colleges.

The long-time federal Perkins Loan Program for college and university students expired at the end of September after a two-year extension in 2015. Higher education officials fear the end of the program could mean a gap in financial aid for low-income students.

Board of Regents to vote on merger at upcoming Thursday meeting.

Republicans in Congress released their proposed overhaul of the nation’s tax laws on Thursday, including several measures that would place new tax burdens on colleges and students — and, critics said, could undermine charitable giving to higher education.

Days after the University of Wisconsin-Superior announced it was suspending more than two dozen academic programs, students packed a room at the Yellowjacket Union on Friday to question administration about the decision.

There are two very different pictures of the students roaming the hallways and labs at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering.

The University of Wisconsin-Superior announced Tuesday it’s suspending 25 programs, including 9 majors, 15 minors and one graduate program. The university has now suspended 40 programs since 2014. The announcement surprised faculty, some of whom said they were unaware their programs were at risk.

Discussion in Christina Berchini’s English 272 class at UW-Eau Claire goes way beyond skin deep.

Students are asked to think and talk about one of the most divisive and uncomfortable issues in American society: race. And yet they relish the opportunity, even though the answers are not all black and white.

Before the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents has even approved a proposal to merge the two-year colleges with four-year universities, campus officials are making plans for what those changes may look like.

The proposed plan to merge the UW System’s 13 two-year campuses with one of the four-year universities was released earlier this month by UW System President Ray Cross, and caught some people off guard, including administrators, faculty, staff and students — stakeholders that have traditionally been able to share their opinions on big picture changes within the system before they’re made.

Jessica Schmidt, 30, is trying to pay down her student loans, but interest rates make that a struggle. The graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is trying to finish a master’s degree in communications while working two jobs to pay off debt from her bachelor’s degree at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Schmidt has paid almost more in interest on one loan than the original $6,000 amount, she said.

According to university, more than 3,500 current UW-Madison students will be directly affected. During the lifetime of the program, however, over 138,000 UW-Madison students benefited from this low-cost, high impact loan with every federal dollar having successfully revolved approximately seven times.

With a “D” rating for function and “F” for condition, the UW-Milwaukee student union has its problems, from a non-functioning elevator to plumbing failure that leaks from the kitchen into the Panther Shop. Now, students have the opportunity to change all of that.

University of Wisconsin Colleges’ top administrator says merging the University of Wisconsin-Baraboo/Sauk County with a larger, four-year campus could bolster declining enrollment at the two-year school.

Twenty Democratic lawmakers expressed concerns about a recent proposal to merge Wisconsin four-year and two-year colleges in a letter sent to UW System President Ray Cross Thursday.

WASHINGTON — At a congressional hearing on free speech on college campuses Thursday, witnesses and senators from both parties championed the free exchange of a diversity of ideas, though they almost all had the same opinion: free speech needs to be vigorously defended on college campuses in the wake of a spate of instances in which students have shouted down speakers.

WHITEWATER—After years of record enrollments, UW-Whitewater last month saw an overall drop in students, according to preliminary fall 2017 figures.

The University of Wisconsin, Madison, has decided to “stop further discussion” on plans to suspend admissions to its full-time M.B.A. program for a year, a move that was to take place while officials mulled potential changes, which included discontinuing the full-time track.

A new UW System policy is politically neutral and includes many positive statements about the UW System promoting and protecting freedom of speech, said Eric Kasper, associate professor of political science at UW-Eau Claire.

As enrollment numbers across the UW System decline, UW-Green Bay sees an increase in students.

The UW System, as a preeminent institution in US higher education, is enormously successful in contributing to life in Wisconsin. Despite this record, Gov. Scott Walker and the Board of Regents are convinced the system now needs a different type of leadership, one that will manage it in a more business-like fashion. Their latest move is to truncate the search process when recruiting top-level administrators (President, Chancellor, Provost, Dean), both by shortening the recruitment time and by reducing the participation of faculty and staff on search committees.

Vassar College, founded at the outset of the Civil War to educate women, remade itself in 1969 when it admitted men for the first time. Then, the liberal arts school in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., reinvented itself again in 2007.

Some farmers can’t afford private consultants, and Cooperative Extension provides advice that’s not tied to particular companies and brands, said Heidi Zoerb, interim associate dean at UW-Extension.

“There are still a lot of people who feel much better talking with somebody local, somebody who is willing to come to their farm, who knows the community and marketplace, and who has a tie to the university,” Zoerb said.

In August, white supremacists marched on the University of Virginia, winding around campus wielding torches and chanting Nazi refrains. The next day, a woman would die as protests in the city of Charlottesville, Va., turned violent.

Complaints about rising college costs are nothing new, but for students and parents calculating the price of college these days, the exercise has become a much more complicated task compared with just a decade ago.

University of Wisconsin System schools conducted about $5.4 million in questionable transactions with their private foundations between 2010 and 2017, according to a system report released Wednesday. None of the transactions were apparently illegal but they didn’t always follow best practices, the report said.