Republican lawmakers are proposing a state law to limit tuition increases after the University of Wisconsin system approved another tuition hike earlier this month.
ales of previously owned homes in Wisconsin rose 8.1 percent in June compared to the same month last year.
That’s according to the Wisconsin Realtors Association’s latest housing report. Kurt Paulsen, professor of urban planning in the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, called the sales jump a “mixed signal.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension is ending its 30-year-old FoodWIse nutrition education program and laying off more than 90 people after losing a federal grant.
Michael Notaro, director of UW–Madison’s Center for Climatic Research launched STEM camps in Beloit, Wisconsin Dells and at Madison’s Henry Vilas Zoo with a simple mission: make science accessible to all children with neurodivergences – but the camps are at risk.
“The main goals of the camps is to support the kind of interest and pursuit of science, degrees and careers, to foster and support neurodiversity and to celebrate it,” Notaro said.
UW-Madison Extension will wind down its FoodWIse programming following federal funding cuts, administrators announced Friday.
The move comes after the passage of President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which eliminated funding for the National Education and Obesity Prevention Grant Program (SNAP-Ed). The funding cuts go into effect on Sept. 30.
Political experts say this will reshape Wisconsin’s political landscape significantly. Howard Schweber, a professor with UW-Madison’s Department of Political Science, believes this decision could encourage several Republicans who previously stayed out of the race to now consider running.
“This opens the field on both sides,” Schweber said. “I think there were several potential Republican candidates who are likely not throwing their hat in the ring because they assumed Evers would be very hard to beat.”
The camp is organized in collaboration with Dr. Michael Notaro, director of the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. With prior funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Notaro and his team have led similar camps in Beloit, Madison, and Wisconsin Dells.
However, future programming is uncertain. Federal support for the camps ended earlier this year when NSF grants were discontinued. While funding remains in place for this summer’s sessions, organizers are seeking alternative sources to continue beyond 2025.
FoodWIse, a statewide program providing nutrition education to low-income families and community organizations, announced on Friday that its federal funding is being eliminated.
Dr. Michael Notaro, director of the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, launched the program several years ago.
“I think that’s inspired by my son Hayden,” Notaro said. “He’s autistic and a wonderful boy. My wife is also autistic. And based on my desire to support and foster neurodiversity, we created three STEM camps.”
Among his losing battles was the 1970s fight over merging the University of Wisconsin in Madison with other state campuses to form the UW System. He was against it, as were his constituents on the Madison campus. He fought enacting a state lottery and opposed building the so-called SuperMax prison that Tommy Thompson later admitted was a big mistake.
Most of the money goes to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension, which offers programming in 70 of the state’s 72 counties. While UW Extension is exploring ways to sustain some SNAP-Ed capacity through alternative funding sources, it has already begun winding down operations. Layoff notices went out to 92 SNAP-Ed educators, UW Extension director Karl Martin said.
Nobody voted for higher costs, crowded classes and less research at the UW, writes Jordan Ellenburg in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Ideas Lab column. The UW-Madison math professor explains how federal budget cuts are undermining decades of the university’s contributions to industry and the dangers that presents to the economy.
Two Republican lawmakers aim to restrict how much in-state undergraduate tuition can increase at University of Wisconsin System campuses.
Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greeville, and Sen. André Jacque, R-De Pere, began circulating the bill for sponsorship July 24, two weeks after the UW Board of Regents voted to raise tuition for the third consecutive year.
Earlier this month, the Universities of Wisconsin system Board of Regents approved a 5 percent tuition increase for undergraduate students for the 2025-26 academic year.
Legislative Republicans are now trying for a third time to cap tuition increases at the state’s public university system at no higher than the rate of inflation.
The proposal would limit the Board of Regents to “only increase tuition and fees for resident undergraduate students up to the rate of the Consumer Price Index.”
Greg Nemet, a professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, knows this isn’t the first time people have declared the “dawn of the solar age.” People in the 1950s, the 1970s and the early 2000s all declared an imminent solar age, only to see fossil fuels continue to dominate.
With Fox and five other two-year UW campuses shuttered in recent years, local educators worry that students in rural parts of the state will miss out on educational opportunities without a campus in their community.
Wisconsin’s new budget boosts some of the funding available to local communities, including those that are home to state buildings.
State buildings are exempt from property taxes, but Wisconsin does compensate the cities, villages and townships where those facilities are located. The increased funding will affect hundreds of communities that house state facilities ranging from prisons to universities to office buildings.
William Banholzer, an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has been traveling to town meetings arguing research doesn’t support banning the boats. Banholzer, who owns a wakesurfing boat but says that doesn’t affect his conclusions, said studies show about 70% of a wave’s energy is dissipated at around 200 feet.
“If you’re taking my rights away, you better have a preponderance of evidence on your side, and they don’t,” Banholzer said.
University of Wisconsin-Madison senior Roselyn Pacheco spoke about the attacks immigrants are facing from the administration.
“If she were indeed committed to running, you would expect her to be raising money at this point, as her opponent already is doing, and as we’ve seen folks doing in prior races at this time,” said Robert Yablon, who co-leads the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“It’s a good time to be a private litigator” in Wisconsin, said Barry Burden, University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor and director of the Elections Research Center. “This has become a very litigious state at a high level, in federal court and in the state Supreme Court.”
In 1873, just before becoming a student at the University of Wisconsin, La Follette heard Edward Ryan, soon to become the state’s Chief Justice, give a commencement speech. Ryan bluntly defined the central questions of the coming era: “Which shall rule—wealth or man; which shall lead—money or intellect; who shall fill public stations—educated and patriotic freemen, or the feudal serfs of corporate capital?” This question would animate La Follette’s career as he tried to live up to UW president John Bascom’s insistence that students accept the obligations of citizenship and their duty to serve the state.
While it’s not unusual to see candidates announce early, this level of spending this early is unprecedented, said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Andrew Reschovsky, an emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, estimates Madison schools will receive about $9.6 million more in special education aid over the next two years. But he said without increases to general aid or equalization aid — other major forms of state funding for schools — Madison must rely more heavily on local taxes for funding.
“Even though special education aid has been increased, it’s still a relatively small part of total state aid,” he said. “At the state level, state aid all together is less than half of total money needed, or total revenues, to support K-12 education.”
A new collaborative grant-making effort administered through the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, dubbed the Orion Initiative, seeks to reverse these trends for rural Wisconsin. Orion Initiative Chief Executive Officer Dr. Amy Kind and U.W. Medicine Associate Professor of Rheumatology Christie Bartels spoke with Monday Buzz host Brian Standing about the project.
Despite the ruling, reproductive care advocates say much work remains to be done to ensure equitable access. Jenny Higgins is a professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is the director of the Collaborative for Reproductive Equity.
A grave long marked only as “Unknown Soldier” in a quiet corner of Restlawn Memorial Park in Wausau was opened last month, as part of a statewide effort to identify missing service members through DNA technology.
The exhumation, carried out June 6, is part of the Missing in Action Recovery and Identification Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Biotechnology Center. That project works to identify remains of service members declared missing in action, many of whom still have living relatives.
University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor Miriam Seifter said Planned Parenthood could still try to advance its constitutional arguments in a future case.
“Wisconsin imposes many other restrictions on abortion, and Planned Parenthood or other plaintiffs could decide to tee up the constitutional question by challenging those restrictions,” Seifter said.
“It’s worth remembering what those [2017] changes were,” said Ross Milton, an assistant professor at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison. “Those were some tax cuts for middle-income households and pretty large tax cuts for high-income households, and those are being extended permanently as part of this new act.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab, created in 1978, supports the public and local county extension offices by receiving and analyzing several thousand insect samples each year. Every year, about two or three non-native insect species are discovered in Wisconsin. Some are only annoyances; others bring serious trouble. The latter is the case with the viburnum leaf beetle.
In Wisconsin, the beetle was first discovered in 2014 in counties west of Milwaukee. In 2019, UW-Madison entomologist P.J. Liesch, on a walk with his family, found an infested shrub. This spring, Liesch fielded dozens of questions from gardeners asking about it, as did Lisa Johnson, a Dane County Extension horticulture educator.
There are about 192,000 childless adults enrolled in BadgerCare Plus. Most of them already work and cannot get health insurance through their employer, said Donna Friedsam, distinguished researcher emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Even those who work, however, could lose coverage if they do not know how to correctly report their work hours to the state, she said.
Overall, tuition hikes are expected to generate about $49 million in additional revenue, said Julie Gordon, interim vice president of finance and administration, during a meeting of the regents’ Business and Finance Committee on July 10.
Increases in tuition are needed despite an increase in state funding for the UW System in the 2025-27 state budget, regents and UW staff said during July 10 discussions.
“We know that COVID — and the isolation related to COVID and the stress and strain of unemployment — was a cause,” said Dr. Patrick Remington, emeritus professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “We also know that there’s a mental health crisis in our nation … alcohol can be used to self-medicate. It’s an attempt to really blunt the pain that comes from depression and or anxiety.”
Faculty members at most campuses across the University of Wisconsin system will soon have to teach at least eight courses per academic year.
The president of the Universities of Wisconsin is proposing a tuition increase for the upcoming school year.
President Jay Rothman’s proposal would increase tuition for in-state undergraduates by 4 percent.
In-state undergraduate students at the Universities of Wisconsin would pay hundreds more in tuition in the 2025-26 academic year under a proposal President Jay Rothman announced Tuesday.
“I think Evers is quite well positioned to run again, and certainly better than anyone else I can think of,” said Howard Schweber, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Jim Conway, a professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, says health providers in the state are watching the situation closely.
“We continue to sort of be on eggshells, and nervous, because obviously we’ve got some pretty substantial areas of the state that kids are under-immunized,” he said.
“Is rulemaking more a legislative power? Is it more an executive power? And depending on how you answer that, is it constitutional?” said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney for the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. The research hub filed an amicus brief in the case, supporting Evers.
Donna Friedsam is distinguished researcher emerita and the former health policy programs director at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that 1 in 5 Wisconsin residents use Medicaid, which includes programs like BadgerCare Plus and Forward Health.
“About 40 percent of all births in Wisconsin and 40 percent of children are covered by Medicaid, and 60 percent of people in nursing homes on long-term care, or elderly and disabled people,” she added.
Tuition at Wisconsin’s public universities could increase up to 5 percent under a new plan released Tuesday.
Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman will ask the Board of Regents on July 10 to increase tuition for undergraduate residents by 4 percent, with individual campuses able to add an optional additional 1 percent increase.
Pending an upcoming vote, tuition for University of Wisconsin System students is set to rise in the upcoming school year.
The Board of Regents is expected to vote July 10 on a proposed 5% increase to resident undergraduate tuition for most UW campuses. At UW-Madison, that 5% tuition increase would add an additional $500, bringing the 2025-26 annual resident undergraduate tuition to $10,506.
Steve Wright, clinical law professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and founding director of the Constitutional Litigation, Appeals, and Sentencing Project, which includes, in part, getting people in Wisconsin prisons needed legal representation.
Wright said lockdowns are likely the cheapest way to prevent catastrophes, but it also means prisoners are unable to venture out of their cells to find relief from the heat without being escorted by correctional officers.
“I’ve been to some of the prisons. On a hot day, you can literally see the steam coming off the ground,” Wright said.
Earlier this year, Dean Robbins brought his zeal and skill for succinct communication to his first book for adults, “Wisconsin Idols: 100 Heroes Who Changed the State, the World and Me” (Wisconsin Historical Society Press).
In their latest attempt at micromanaging an institution for which their support ranks 44th among the 50 states, the budget contains a provision that requires faculty members to teach at least 24 credit hours per year, a number that is reduced to 12 credit hours for the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Faculty can buy down the number of courses they must teach by replacing their compensation with funding from other sources, like grants, the reporters explained.
Tim Baye, a professor of business development and a state energy and energy finance specialist with the University of Wisconsin–Madison Extension, said developers have been rushing since November to get planned projects moving in time to qualify for tax credits.
While there may be an initial rush to meet requirements for tax credits in the short term, Baye said he expects the bill will cause a slowdown in renewable development once those incentives sunset.
“We’re going to see a real slowdown,” he said. “It’s going to have a chilling effect.”
“Regardless of … where a baby is born, we want them to be able to have access to this genomic testing,” said genetic counselor April Hall, who’s an assistant professor of pediatrics at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
Gov. Tony Evers signed Wisconsin’s 2025-27 bipartisan state budget into law Thursday morning, securing a $256 million increase to the University of Wisconsin System budget after months of negotiations with Republican lawmakers. It’s a far cry from the $856 million the system requested, but a welcome alternative to the $87 million cut Republican legislators floated just two weeks ago.
While the Wisconsin dairy industry is known to rely on unauthorized workers (it’s believed about 70% of the workforce is working illegally), the majority in the state actually work elsewhere, said Laura Dresser, a labor economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
From Dresser’s perspective, undocumented workers are especially vulnerable when law enforcement agencies focus more on immigration status and less on violations of workers’ rights.
That culture of fear can create “incentives for some employers to find a way to drive wages and standards down,” Dresser said.
“Evers got most of what he wanted. He is now in a position to say, ‘I’ve done what I needed to do. I got funding back to UW [the University of Wisconsin system], I got funding for child care, we’ve saved the kids in Wisconsin.’ We’ve got a kids budget — I think that gives him an out,” said Brandon Scholz, a Wisconsin Republican strategist. “He can go out on top.”
Gov. Tony Evers signed the $111 billion two-year state budget bill into law overnight following a marathon day of overlapping Senate and Assembly floor sessions where the bill received bipartisan support from lawmakers. The budget cuts taxes by $1.3 billion, makes investments in the University of Wisconsin system, boosts public schools’ special education reimbursement rate to 45% and allocates about $330 for child care.
Wisconsin lawmakers voted to approve a state budget late Wednesday night that spends more than $111 billion over the next two years, cuts more than 300 state jobs and increases funding for the child care industry and the Universities of Wisconsin system. It also cuts taxes by about $1.4 billion.
Tax cuts for retirees and middle-income residents, raises for UW system employees and an increase in special education funding are among highlights of the $111 billion state budget, signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers early Thursday morning.
“We could see future cases that argue there is a constitutional right to abortion in Wisconsin and challenge other laws that we have in the state related to abortion,” said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “But those would be a bit more nuanced than challenging an outright ban.”
Lawmakers’ attention was drawn to fusion by three startup companies that have made Wisconsin their home, as well as research by the University of Wisconsin. One of the companies, Realta Fusion, worked with lawmakers as they drafted the legislation.
The overall package cuts taxes by $1.3 billion, spends hundreds of millions on building projects on University of Wisconsin System campuses, expands Medicaid funding, increases funding for special education and funds new childcare programs, among other measures. In all, it spends $111 billion, a 12% increase over current spending levels.
Advocacy groups could continue trying to litigate whether there is a right to the procedure under the state constitution, said Miriam Seifter, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. But for now, Wednesday’s ruling ends a complicated, three-year conflict over the state’s abortion laws.
“The question all along has been, how do they fit together?” she said.
UW System President Jay Rothman is celebrating the funding increase the system will get in the next state budget as part of a bipartisan agreement announced Tuesday morning.
Planned Parenthood had posited that the 176-year-old law conflicts with the provisions in the state constitution establishing a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as well as equal protection. So, the constitutional question goes unresolved, according to Bryna Godar, a staff attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
“And so, I think there will be continued conversations about what constitutional protections we have in Wisconsin,” says Godar. She says that could be future court cases or constitutional amendment ballot questions.
Gov. Tony Evers and Republican legislative leaders reached an agreement Tuesday to a $256 million increase for the University of Wisconsin System — the largest funding increase in about two decades.
This would be a major turnaround for the UW System in the budget after Republican lawmakers threatened an $87 million cut just two weeks ago. The UW Board of Regents and Evers originally proposed a record-high $856 million increase for the system, a total that would bring the state’s public higher education funding in line with the national median.
