of a Minnesota state legislator and her husband
in June in state education news. With the start of the
new academic year. Estimates show freshman
enrollment is up at universities of Wisconsin
schools this fall. That's after six branch campuses
closed or stopped in-person classes in the last three
years, according to the UW. New student enrollment is
up a total of 3%, with eight campuses seeing
increases at or above 5%. Overall enrollment at the
UW stands at more than 164,000 students. System
President Jay Rothman says the new Direct Admit
program is attracting new students. Under the program,
qualified high school juniors get direct
admission based on grades and coursework. UW-Madison,
Eau Claire and La Crosse do not participate. But
Wisconsin high school applicants ranking in the
top 5% are guaranteed admission to UW-Madison
under a different program. UW-Madison Professor of
Education Taylor Odle conducts national research
on direct admission programs. He joins us now.
Thanks for being here. >> Thanks so much for the
invitation. see your research in action
like this? >> I think that's every
researcher's dream. We we work a lot. We work with a
lot of data, talk to a lot of policymakers. And the
ultimate goal at the end of the day is that what we do
matters. And that's also true of the Wisconsin idea
that we care about here at UW-Madison, that the
insights that we produce actually make their hands
into or make their way into the hands of policymakers
and into the lives of people who live across the
state. Rothman says our Direct
Admit program is driving new enrollment. Why do
these programs work? >> They work because we
make it easier for people to take us up on our offers
of admission. The pathway to getting into college.
And this doesn't have anything to do with
eliminating or reducing standards of admission. It
has to do with simplifying the pathway. And so we know
that students and families have to navigate a lot of
complex red tape, applying sending transcripts, taking
tests, getting letters of Rec, etc. etc. And so if we
implement programs like their way through that red
tape and say, hey, we know that you're admissible.
Tell us when you want to come to campus because we
want you to be here. Surprisingly, more people
show up on campus when we make it easier for them to
do so. >> And yet, not all people
who get that letter that say you've been directly
admitted to, you know, one of these schools across the
state and roll, why wouldn't they?
There are myriad reasons of why people choose to go to
college, and also why they choose not to go to college.
And so getting admitted, getting that letter,
piece of the puzzle. But we also know there are other
things that impact whether or not people come to
college, principally whether or not they can
afford it. But also there are a variety of other
factors. You may be a single parent. You may also
be working while while learning and supporting
your parents, doing some other engagement with the
community as well. And so it's just one piece of the
puzzle, but it seems like that piece has been
important for getting more students to show up on
campus. >> A similar program that
you developed in Tennessee also has a personalized
financial aid estimates feature attached to it. How
important a piece is that for students and families?
That piece in Tennessee. >> We think it's critical
because it changes the message from there's a spot
for you on campus to there's a spot for you on
campus, and there are resources to help you
afford it. So it pushes people further down the
college going pathway by letting them know what
their options are for where they can go, but also what
their options are for how they can pay for it.
Students and families often face this kind of big,
amorphous number of how much does it really cost?
And they have to complete things like the Fafsa and
hear from their campus about how much it's going
to cost at the end of the day. And so if we can
provide a little bit more of that information up
front, we hope that it helps kind of create a
snowball effect, if you will. They're more likely
to file that Fafsa, more likely to engage with the
campus so they have a >> Is that something that
could attach to the Wisconsin program as well?
>> Absolutely, yes. So we're actually using
exists on these students, such as their GPA, much
like Direct Admit Wisconsin. They guarantee does here to
know whether or not students would be eligible
for merit based financial aid. Some other states,
like the state of Washington, are actually
using K-12 records on free and reduced price lunch,
and also students participation in Snap and
TANF and other things to actually pre award them
need based financial aid. So there's some bubbling of
this across the country and we'd love to see it in
Wisconsin for sure. declining enrollments have
schools for decades. How meaningful can Direct Admit
programs be toward pulling as many new students in,
even as demographics work against that?
>> They can be critical because, as you mentioned,
demographics are also student who shows up on
campus today isn't necessarily look like the
student who showed up on campus 30 years ago. Many
students who are showing up, whether they're students
who weren't originally born in the US or students of
color, students from very rural backgrounds, students
from low income families, of barriers in navigating
that college application admissions in many ways is
designed for them. It eliminates those barriers
completely and says, hey, you've done a really great
job academically. There is a place for you on campus.
And I think this is why, and I'm happy to see this
system attributing a lot of these enrollment increases
programs like this, because they're kind of common
sense, I think, all around. >> So J. Rothman also notes
that the new enrollment numbers show there are
significant declines in international students, as
we would have expected up to 15% nationwide. I don't
know where we square with that right at this moment,
but what kind of losses that to campus communities?
>> It's a large loss, right? So in the student
interpersonal aspect of not being engaged or not being
exposed to students of varying cultural or ethnic
or religious backgrounds, which is a hallmark, I
think, of the college experience. It's also
critically important for our institutions. We are
facing lagging and slow support from the state.
We're facing reductions from the federal government
in funds for research dollars. And now students,
particular international students who pay out of
state tuition. And so we're in a particularly hard
place. And so losing this population not only has an
academic loss for campuses, but a financial one as well.