Enrollment up, and regular, throughout the UW System

College students stroll throughout the College of Wisconsin-Whitewater campus on the primary day of the Fall 2023 semester. The campus noticed the best enrollment improve of any UW-System college this fall. (UW-Whitewater)

Mixed enrollment is up throughout all the College of Wisconsin System this fall, though enrollment at two of three UW campuses in southeastern Wisconsin noticed modest declines.

Preliminary headcount figures present an enrollment of 161,322 throughout all system campuses for Fall 2023, a rise of 540 over Fall 2022, in keeping with a press launch issued by the UW-System this week. The expansion marks the primary time since 2014, that UW System, as entire, noticed a year-over-year improve in college students.

The estimates are based mostly on first-day registration figures and projections of different new college students.

For brand new freshman college students, the estimates point out a rise of 592 college students in Fall 2023 at UW System universities, over Fall 2022. That determine doesn’t embrace UW-Madison, which intentionally sought to cut back the variety of incoming first-year college students after final 12 months’s incoming class was barely bigger than anticipated, the discharge states.

Excluding UW-Madison, new freshman enrollment elevated by 3 % total.

“Wisconsin is in a struggle for expertise and our universities play a key position to assist construct the colourful future all of us need right here,” stated UW System President Jay Rothman. “Right now’s enrollment announcement reveals a unbroken rebound of recent freshman college students making faculty plans for his or her future. This can be a nice signal for all of Wisconsin as a result of freshman enrollment is a number one indicator of future enrollment.”

5 universities confirmed total will increase – UW-Madison, UW-Inexperienced Bay, UW-Platteville, UW-Stevens Level, and UW-Whitewater – based mostly on the preliminary knowledge.

Progress at Whitewater

Whitewater, specifically, is projecting an enrollment of 11,462 college students throughout each its primary and Rock County campuses for the Fall 2023 semester – a 3.4% improve when in comparison with the Fall 2022 semester, when the faculties had a mixed enrollment of 11,087 college students. That’s the highest undertaking enrollment improve for the entire UW System’s four-year campuses. UW-Platteville’s enrollment is up by 3.3 % this 12 months. UW-Stevens Level is up 3.1 %.

The Whitewater campus is anticipated to succeed in 10,764 college students, up 2.6 % from final 12 months. On the Rock County campus in Janesville, enrollment is projected to be 698, up 105 college students, a 17.7% improve. This marks the primary year-to-year rise in complete enrollment on the Whitewater campus since fall 2016, and the primary improve on the Rock County campus since fall 2018.

“Extra college students are transferring to UW-Whitewater from different schools and universities, and the variety of college students who’re the primary of their household to pursue greater training can be rising,” stated John Chenoweth, UW-Whitewater’s provost and vice chancellor for educational affairs in regards to the college’s development. “Our College of Graduate Research is at 1,710 college students, which might be the second largest complete in our historical past.’”

This 12 months’s freshmen class on the college – 1,975 college students – can be the most important in six years, Chenoweth famous.

Dips at UW-Milwaukee, Parkside

UW System faculties seeing modest enrollment declines this 12 months embrace UW-Milwaukee and UW-Parkside.

UW-Milwaukee noticed its Fall 2023 enrollment decline by about 285 college students or 1.2% as in comparison with final 12 months, when its first-day registration figures and projections of different new college students was 22,866. Preliminary first-day registration figures put the varsity’s Fall 2023 enrollment at 22,581, though that quantity might improve or lower.

UW-Parkside noticed a barely smaller enrollment dip of 0.9%, with early estimates placing its Fall 2023 enrollment at 3,930, a dip of 36 college students when put next with Fall 2022 enrollment figures.

Last enrollment figures based mostly on the tenth day of courses – the usual measure of enrollment and the determine that will likely be formally reported to the U.S. Division of Schooling — will differ barely from the preliminary estimates based mostly on the primary day of courses. Some college students enroll or discontinue research after the primary day of courses.