UW-Milwaukee work group calls for no merger between West Bend campus and tech college

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at Washington County should collaborate more closely with but not formally merge with a local technical college, a university work group recently proposed.

The recommendation differs from the plan put forth by Washington County officials and Republican state lawmakers, teeing up further debate about the future of the West Bend campus that's growing smaller with each passing school year.

Here's where deliberations about the campus stand:

What did Washington County propose?

A Washington County task force earlier this year suggested merging UW-Milwaukee at Washington County with the West Bend campus of Moraine Park Technical College. The campuses are just a couple miles apart.

The Washington County Board recommended Moraine Park run the merged campus, effectively ending UWM's involvement.

The board's resolution came a few months after another UW branch campus, UW-Platteville Richland, was designated for closure after more than a decade of stagnant state funding, tuition freezes and declining enrollment left the Richland Center campus with fewer than 60 students this past school year.

What is UW-Milwaukee at Washington County enrollment?

Since 2018, when UWM assumed oversight of the Washington County campus, enrollment has plummeted by 55%. That's due to a variety of factors "largely beyond control," the work group concluded, such as demographic changes, a plethora of well-paying jobs that don't require a college degree and growing doubt about the value of higher education.

"We do not think these trends will reverse in the short term," the report said.

Numbers for this fall are trending 14% lower than last year, when 332 students enrolled.

How did Wisconsin lawmakers get involved with UW-Milwaukee at Washington County campus?

Republicans this summer approved merging the two West Bend campuses as part of the state budget, tucking in more more than $3 million to aid in the transition.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the measure. He didn't support singling out one campus but not helping others. Like UWM at Washington County, most UW branch campuses are struggling to fill seats.

What is UW-Milwaukee's plan for the Washington County campus?

The UWM work group said a merger would be "infeasible" but also concluded "UWM at Washington County cannot continue as it is "given enrollment trends." Instead, the group recommended fully integrating the campus with UWM over the next several years.

Four of the six other UW institutions that assumed oversight of a branch campus integrated campuses fully. An English professor at UW-Green Bay Sheboygan, for example, is part of UW-Green Bay’s English department and teaches courses that are part of the same English curriculum used at all UW-Green Bay campuses.

UWM, however, is a research university, where professors generally teach fewer classes but are expected to conduct more research and are evaluated differently for tenure promotion. Because of these inherent structural differences, administrators created the College of General Studies to house its two branch campuses in Washington County and Waukesha. A psychology course at one of the branches isn't the same as at UWM.

Dissolving the College of General Studies would create a single admissions process and course catalog across the campuses, which would ease the admissions and transfer processes for students, the report said.

The group also called for a facilities review. Suggestions included UWM occupying half of the Washington County campus building and leasing the other half, or renting classroom space from Moraine Park.

Why didn't the work group propose a merger with Moraine Park?

The work group opposed a full-fledged merger with the technical college. It questioned how much competition existed between the two West Bend campuses and whether obtaining a four-year degree would become more difficult if only a technical college remained.

Fewer than one-fifth of UWM at Washington County students receive associate degrees, the report said. Most attend with the hope of earning a four-year degree. Just 4% of surveyed students said they'd be more likely to attend a merged institution, while 45% said they would be less likely to attend it, according to the report.

"It’s not that I don’t like (Moraine Park Technical College), but the potential of having this school under UWM has far more opportunities for future students who need to save money or want to experience community college life," one student wrote in the survey. "I went here because of the availability and potential to move to other schools once I was done here, so I wish that future students would have the same opportunity that I had by having this school be a part of UWM.”

How are others reacting to the UW-Milwaukee work group recommendations?

Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann saw more similarities than differences in what his task force proposed and what the work group recommended.

"Whether you call it merging resources, sharing resources, transitioning resources, at the end of the day (Moraine Park Technical College) and UWM working together better for our students is what we were shooting for from the beginning, so I'm pleased to see where they landed," he said, adding, "It seems like everyone's moving in same direction even if we don't want to use the same exact words."

Moraine Park officials did not return a request for comment Friday.

What happens next?

The work group's recommendations are purely advisory.

UWM leadership will review the report this fall.

Contact Kelly Meyerhofer at kmeyerhofer@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @KellyMeyerhofer.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Proposal to merger UWM at Washington County with Moraine Park stalls