In state education news, with the start of the new academic year, estimates show that
freshmen 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 directed mission 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 Odel conducts national research on direct admission programs.
He joins us now. Thanks for being here. Thanks so much for the invitation.
So what is it like to see your research in action like this? I think that's every researcher's dream.
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 scholarship and the insights that we produce actually make
their hands and make their way into the hands of policymakers and then to lives of people who live
across the state. So as we said, Jay 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 direct admissions that cut 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 role. Why wouldn't they?
That's a great question. 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, getting excited is
one 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 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
estimate 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 the FAFSA more likely to engage with the campus so they have a better choice set.
Is that something that could attach to the Wisconsin program as well? Absolutely yes so we're
actually using information that already exists on these students such as their GPA much like
direct admit Wisconsin and 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 would love to see it on Wisconsin for sure. So we know that declining
enrollments have been a concern for UW 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 changing
and so the student who shows up on campus today isn't necessarily doesn'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 those students face a lot of barriers in navigating
that college application process and so direct 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 the system
attributing a lot of these enrollment increases to direct admissions programs like this
because the kind of common sense I think all around. So Jay Rothman also notes that the new
enrollment numbers show there are significant declines in international students as we would
have expected up to 15 percent nationwide. I don't know where we square with that right at this moment
but what kind of loss is that to campus communities? It's a large loss right so and 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're facing lagging and slow support from the
state we're facing reductions from the federal government and funds for research dollars and
now students particularly national 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. We leave it there. You to bring Madison professor Taylor Old. Thanks very much. Thanks.