Lots of Badgers aren't from here. But that's OK, and Madison should be different from rest of UW

As a Wisconsin high school graduate that is a two-time alum of the state's flagship university, this headline grabbed my attention today - for the first time, less than half of UW-Madison freshmen aren’t from Wisconsin.

...the class includes the most in-state students of any freshman class since 2001. And while the balance has shifted, UW-Madison officials say that’s not necessarily a bad thing. With their higher tuition, out-of-state students help fund many of the university’s priorities.

“This is pretty much to be expected — a downstream effect of years of state budget cuts and also having to keep pace with peer universities,” said Thomas Harnisch, a UW-Madison alumnus who is vice president of government relations for the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, which represents university leaders across the country including the University of Wisconsin System. “Institutions are looking for resources. One of the ways to fill that gap is through out-of-state students.”

Particularly when the university isn’t able to raise in-state tuition, which they haven’t been able to do in the last 8 years. So it’s no surprise that UW-Madison makes up the difference by being open to having more out-of-state students attend, at their higher tuition rates.

Nearly the same number of out-of-state and international students enrolled as did in-state students — 3,828, or 45% of the class. That’s a 37% increase from last year and an 88% increase since 2015 when the UW Board of Regents paved the way for Wisconsin’s flagship school to enroll more out-of-state students by lifting a cap on how many nonresidents UW-Madison could enroll.

Add in the 877 freshmen from Minnesota (who pay a lower tuition rate under a reciprocity agreement), and you have a majority of Freshman Badgers not being from the Badger state.

That being said the growing proportion of out-of-state freshman is not necessarily at the expense of Wisconsin high schoolers who want to be a Badger. The number of in-state freshmen at Madison have been steady if not slightly increasing over the last 8 years, and are higher than the number of in-state freshmen that were coming in for much of the 2000s.

Also, UW’s soon-to-be-departing leader notes that an increasing number of those out-of-staters are sticking around after their time as a student ends.

In the most recent year for which data is available, about 23% of out-of-state students were living in Wisconsin a year after graduation, [UW-Madison Chancellor Becky] Blank said. That’s higher than in past years.

“That essentially says that you are adding some 1,500 students to the workforce, really highly skilled, highly talented students,” Blank said. “There is no other institution anywhere in the state that begins to bring in that number.”

I would agree that the UW and Madison area as a whole is one of the best ways to introduce people into Wisconsin and make them want to stay. And given this state’s slow growth and aging demographics, we need all of the younger talent that we can get.

UW-Madison has also been bucking the trend of lower enrollments at UW schools for this year, with an increase of 2,564 students for this year, and an overall enrollment that is now over 48,000.

Add in the fact that UW’s flagship school also has a larger donor base and receives big amounts of research grants and contracts (including a $10.6 million agreement announced this month to become the home of the National Research Center on Poverty and Economic Mobility), and Madison is the least reliant on state funding out of all of the UW campuses.

Which is why I think it's a good idea for the next chancellor at Madison to ask that the school be allowed to go out on its own, with its main state funding coming in the form of financial aid to in-state students. This would allow for more funds to go to the other 12 campuses, which serve a higher percentage of in-state students, and have its finances and school offerings be more sustainable in the process.

It also would allow for Madison to be taken out from under the oversight of regressive trash like Steve nASS, and give it the flexibility to be competitive in pay and in resources with other top-flight research schools. And as we have seen, a top-flight Madison campus pays off as a talent incubator for Wisconsin businesses, and can be a way for our state's population to grow despite its infavorable demographics.

And with Blank leaving Madison, this is another "Thank God Tony Evers is our governor" situation.

Congrats to Becky.
As an aside, had Evers not won the Governorship in 2018, the stage had been set for Walker appointees to appoint a non PhD to replace her. At least now the selection process won’t be stacked to put someone without university experience in place. https://t.co/nqYFVqgvP8

— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) October 11, 2021

A non-PhD isn't the deal-breaker for me, but given the number of RW hacks that would be on the Board of Regents in Walker's 3rd term, it likely would have been some Koched-up hack who would have brought along other BS artists. And that clown would have been fine with professors being hunted down by the GOPperganda machine if they dared to give students inconvenient truths.

Thankfully, Madison won't have that type of interference as it finds a new chancellor. And that new leader should use the opportunity to break free from the gerrymandered, resentful fools in the Legislature that try to knock down one of our state's best assets.