Good morning everyone.
I wanna make sure that everybody is
able to record.
Looks like
TMJ4 is still connecting.
Does anybody else need
permission to record?
I'm good.
Recording in progress
I will record as well.
Let's give it one more minute
because there was a few folks that
had asked for the invite who
haven't yet joined and
wanna make sure that they can get
on the call.
Okay, well, I'm going to go ahead
and record and we can get started.
Just as a reminder, we're
embargoed until 11 a.m.
And.
President Rothman will have a few
brief remarks.
We might have people joining while
he's
speaking and then
we'll go to questions.
Go ahead, President Rothman.
Okay, thanks Mark and good morning
everyone. Thank you for joining us
today.
At the Universities of Wisconsin, we
are proud of the impact that our
Direct Admit Wisconsin program is
having. This is a program where
students are automatically admitted
to 10 of our 13 universities
based on their GPA following
their junior year in high school.
This is the second year of Direct
Admitt Wisconsin with nearly
34,000 Wisconsin
high school students this year.
From 467 schools
receiving admit letters.
That's 155 more participating
schools than we had last year.
Direct Admit Wisconsin is making it
easier than ever to explore
an education at the universities
of Wisconsin.
Now is the time for those students
who have received letters and who
will be high school seniors to check
their high school email addresses
or to check the emails
for their direct admit offers.
Postal letters will also be arriving
later this month.
Students and parents should know
that there is a university within
the universities of Wisconsin that
is right for them.
And we encourage students receiving
the admissions letter
to fill out the direct admit
form to let the UWs
know that they are interested in
learning more.
Early indications are that the 2024
inaugural year of direct admit
Wisconsin has led to more
engagement for students who will be
starting at our universities this
fall.
What we found is that more students
contacted universities overall,
as well as earlier in the process,
oftentimes shortly after receiving
their Direct Admit offers.
In short, we believe Direct Admitt
is simplifying access to college
and helping lead increased
enrollment at our public
universities.
Expanding educational opportunities,
which we believe direct admit will
do and will play a key role in doing
is critical for Wisconsin's
economic future.
And we remind all students to
visit wisconsin.edu where
they can learn more about our
universities, complete a direct
admit interest form
and explore financial aid.
And with that, I'd be happy to
answer any questions that you may
have.
Uh, Kelly, can you start us off?
Sure, so I just want to be clear
about what you said. Did you say the
program you think is increasing
enrollment? And do you have any sort
of, like, numbers, you know, what
you're seeing there?
Yeah, we.
Yeah kelly we don't have any
specific specific numbers and as
you know we will have preliminary
numbers once school starts in
september and and final
10-day numbers in october
but based on what i am seeing so
far anecdotally in some of the
preliminary projections we
think we will have a robust freshman
class and in part in no
small part due to direct admit
wisconsin we'll we'll see it when we
we have the final numbers but the
we're seeing some really encouraging
signs. As we look at
enrollment for freshmen this
year.
Uh, Abigail.
Um, so how many
more students will be in
direct admit last year than this
year? Did you say that?
There's about, Abigail, there's
about 9,000 more
students that received Direct Admit
letters this year compared
to last year. We were about at
24,000 last year, a
little bit over that, and we're
about 33,500
this year.
And we increased the number of
schools participating.
Last year, we were at 312
schools participating in the
program. We had 467
this year, so we made some.
Real significant progress in getting
more schools to participate
in the program.
With our goal, obviously, is
ultimately to have all
Wisconsin high school
students have an opportunity to have
access to direct admit Wisconsin.
Sabine, would you
introduce yourself and do
you have a question?
Yeah, hi, my name is Sabina Martin.
I'm the new hired reporter for
the Wisconsin State Journal.
I just was wanting to
ask if, you know,
these new numbers, kind of if they
signal, you know meeting
the goal of reaching
college graduation rates,
increasing those by 10% by 2028,
does like the results this year
still feel make that on track?
You know, I think we are continuing
to work toward that goal.
That was an extremely lofty goal
when we presented it, but we have a
number of enrollment initiatives
that are out there.
Direct Admit Wisconsin is one of
them. We are expanding our
dual enrollment programs
to try to continue to drive
interest. We are working on
retention rates for
students who are at our universities
today.
All of those things are really
factoring in to ensuring
that we deliver the graduates
that Wisconsin needs
for its economic vibrancy,
but also that we offer that
opportunity for any
student who has the passion
and the ability to
be successful at one of our
universities to do so.
And that's one of the really
exciting things for me about
Direct Admit Wisconsin.
I've heard a number
of anecdotes where parents
have told me.
That their student
was not really engaged and
not thinking about going to college,
wasn't sure whether or not they were
capable of doing college-level work.
They get the letter from us saying
that you're accepted into these
universities, and it changes their
perspective.
People can do amazing things when
you believe in them.
And when we send these direct admit
letters out to students, we're
telling those students that we
believe they can be successful at
our universities because they
can't be.
Mackenzie at WMTV NBC
15.
Do you have a question?
Yeah, hi, thank you.
So President Rothman was just
wondering, how do you hope adding
these new schools will help continue
to keep these students at
Wisconsin high schools right here in
the state as they're continuing
their education?
You know, Going to other
states.
Yeah, I mean, I think that that's
one of the key things for
Wisconsin is to keep its talent
here.
And this is yet another opportunity
for us to show Wisconsin
high schoolers that they have
opportunities and they have terrific
opportunities at the universities
of Wisconsin.
And what is important to us is
that in-state residents
who graduate from our
universities, nearly 90
percent of them are still in the
state five years after their
graduation.
So, we've got a real potential
of keeping talent in the state and
we believe that is crucial to the
long-term economic vibrancy of
Wisconsin.
TMJ4 is on the line.
Do you have a question?
And how about PBS Wisconsin?
Kelly, back to you. Do you have
another question?
Yeah, thanks.
I'm wondering, this program's
great at reaching students.
And I think the research that's been
done in other states has shown it
doesn't address the financial
affordability part of
going to college.
So there are students who maybe they
get this letter and think, maybe I
can do this. And then they look into
the financials and say,
actually, I can't.
What are you
guys doing to address financial
affordabilty since you got an
increase in the state budget?
Are you talking about?
Doing the Tuition Promise Program
again, or what would you be
doing there?
We had specifically asked
for the tuition promise program to
be funded, Kelly, and it was not by
the legislature in this go-round.
I continue to believe that is an
important component.
But we do have a modified
tuition promise for incoming
students in the fall of 2025.
That program is
supported in part by Ascendium
Education Group.
We were grateful for the grant that
we got from Ascendiam, which allows
us to do this.
And I think we're going to continue
to be looking at what we can do in
terms of institutional aid, aid
provided by the universities
themselves. That aid has doubled
over the last 10 years, so we are
trying to address that issue.
But I think what we're also finding,
Kelly, is that when we
have the opportunity to talk to the
students about what financial aid
might be available, what might not
seem affordable at first blush,
our financial aid folks work really
hard to find pathways for students.
So that they can afford to
go to school.
And we are gonna continue to
look at those avenues.
So part of it is just having the
conversation to start and talking
about completing FAFSA and
what that means and then what flows
from that.
Prior to direct admit Wisconsin,
students might have just said it's
too expensive, I can't go.
We now have the opportunity to
connect with them and show them what
is available. They all ultimately
have to make their own decision.
But I think it gives us the real
opportunity to engage in that
conversation and share with
them the financial aid that is
available. And I think oftentimes
they are surprised at
how affordable it can be.
And again, we are working hard to
maintain our affordability.
We continue to be the most
affordable public university
in the Midwest and beyond.
And that is a goal of ours to try to
do our level best to
ensure that we are affordable while
at the same time.
Ensuring that we have the excellence
that the universities of Wisconsin
are known for.
Abigail.
Uh, so what I'm wondering is how,
how is this impacting overall
enrollment numbers? And are you
having to reject more students who
are applying without direct
admit? Do you have data on that?
I think most
of our universities, they have
the capacity so that we don't have
a huge issue in terms of
rejections.
So, the 10 of the 13.
We have had a couple of our
universities this fall that are
going to be tight in terms of dorm
space, but those are good problems
for us to have.
I think, you know, as we look moving
forward in the state, we want
to continue to increase the
participation rate, the percentage
of high school students going on to
higher education.
This is a means of trying to do
that, not for the universities of
Wisconsin, but more importantly, so
that we fulfill our mission to the
state of Wisconsin.
Of producing the nurses and the
teachers and the data scientists and
the engineers and the business
people and so on and so that
are going to be necessary for our
state to thrive in the future.
Yeah, I'm curious if you could share
which schools in the system are
seeing the most new students through
this program.
I'm not sure I followed that
question, Sabine, could you repeat
it for me, please?
Yeah, which schools
in the system are seeing the most
new students through this program?
You know, it's really not clear
yet. We will have a better sense
of that after we have our final
enrollment numbers this
fall.
Because as you may know, we started
this program a year ago.
So the first class is starting
this fall that
was under directed at Wisconsin.
We know the engagement levels are up
based on some preliminary
analysis that we have done.
We believe that I'm bullish about
what our incoming freshman class
will look like.
How that will split, how that will
break down among the universities I
think is yet to be seen.
So we look forward to
getting a little bit more of that
data and making some judgments
about where this is.
Than not as it relates to our
universities.
And a final question from
Mackenzie,
if you have one.
That answers all my questions.
Thanks, Mark.
Well, thanks everybody for joining
us and thanks for your interest in
Direct Admit Wisconsin.
Have a great day.
Follow up with any questions if you
have any.
Thanks very much.