Regents approve UW tuition increases for 2025-26

The Board of Regents for the Universities of Wisconsin has unanimously approved a tuition increase of up to 5 percent for the 2025-26 academic year, the universities announced this week.

The bump up in cost will be 4 percent at all universities, though individual campuses have an option to add 1 percent, bringing the maximum increase to 5 percent, or an average $382 increase.

All universities except UW-Green Bay plan to adopt the additional 1 percent, the universities announced. In addition, UW-River Falls has received an additional increase in support of various student success initiatives, bringing its resident undergraduate increase to 5.8 percent.

“After a decade of a tuition freezes and lagging state aid, we believe we have struck a balance for students and families with this proposal and the recent state investments in the UWs as part of the 2025-27 biennial budget,” UW’s president Jay Rothman said.

However, Republicans criticized the increases, with state Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) pointing out that the universities just received $1.13 billion for their capital budget and $316 million for their operational budget in the 2025-27 Wisconsin state budget.

“The Universities of Wisconsin just received over a billion dollars of new, taxpayer money in the state budget, so now what are they doing? Raising tuition,” Felzkowski said. “The last two tuition increases have been done in early spring so incoming students have complete information before the deadline to commit to a university; now, committed students are facing a shock tuition increase.”

Why is this year different? Felzkowski asked rhetorically: “They had to first secure those billion dollars in the budget.”

On top of it all, the senator said, UW-Madison is now undertaking a media campaign to promote dismantling their DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) department. 

“Don’t be fooled,” she said. “The positions have simply been moved to other departments. The timing of the state budget, the tuition increase, and the false DEI media campaign is not coincidental.”

State Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield) said the tuition increases ignore the reality that a major concern for prospective students is the cost of a college education. 

“It’s disappointing that the regents are poised to disregard those concerns,” Hutton said. “Will this be paired with a three-year degree offering or any way of completing a program more quickly and accruing less debt? Without an effort to make their product more responsive to student and employer needs, I fear this decision will worsen the UW System’s enrollment declines and put those seeking higher education even further into long-term debt.”

State Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto) said the universities showed no gratitude for new state funding.

“The UW System is thanking taxpayers for a $256 million funding increase in our new state budget by raising the price Wisconsinites have to pay to attend its universities,” Wimberger said. “UW does good things, but not everything it does is good. It has unfortunately become ground zero for waste, and the prototype of dysfunctional bureaucracy.”

In the last decade, Wimberger said, the UW not only lost 16,000 enrolled students, but bloated its budget and increased the salaries of its academic staff by $697 million. 

“UW has also chosen to prioritize DEI and irrelevant courses over rightsizing and efficiency,” he said. “Instead of simply returning their staff-to-student ratio to what it was 10 years ago, UW chose to resist reform, demanding more and more from the state and its students.”

The biennial budget appropriated $256 million additional in operations and $840 million in new capital projects across UW’s campuses, Wimberger observed. 

“Within a week of the budget being signed, they now want even more off the backs of hardworking families who pay their tuition bills,” he said.

In June, Wimberger’s office released data showing that, despite a decline in its total number of enrolled students over the past ten years, the system had significantly increased its staffing.

“In the last 10 years, the UW System has lost some 16,000 enrolled students, but added thousands of non-classroom employees whose salaries cost hundreds of millions of dollars per year,” Wimberger said in June. “… This data shows UW continues to protect its own bureaucracy at the expense of students. The challenge for Wisconsin remains cutting its bureaucracy and investing in the programs that best provide for our modern workforce, such as engineering and nursing degrees.”

As the legislature’s audit committee co-chairman, Wimberger said he recognizes that waste and bloat are inherent in bureaucracies. 

“UW’s future rests on its ability to provide more value to our students and our state, and I trust that Republicans will find a way … to help UW get back on track and do the job Wisconsinites need them to do,” he said.

According to the data released by Wimberger, in the last 10 years, from 2014 to 2024, the number of academic staff grew by 33.4 percent, with a 97.4 percent increase in salary expenditures over that time. Similarly, the senator’s office reported, the number of limited appointees — specially-appointed staff who serve in administrative capacities — rose by 39 percent over the same period, with their payroll expenses growing by 78.3 percent.

The vote on the tuition proposal came after lawmakers and Gov. Tony Evers reached agreement on a new state budget for the next two years starting July 1. The UW says much of the state funding increase of $256 million is dedicated to specific initiatives. State funding represents about one-fifth of the UWs’ total revenues.

The universities say that, compared to UW’s comprehensive peers, resident undergraduate tuition increased just 7.7 percent during the 10-year period from 2015 to 2025 — well below neighboring states, which ranged from increases of 21.7 percent to 28.8 percent during the same period.

Overall, the total proposed cost of attendance for resident undergraduates will increase an average of 3.8 percent, or $682 when segregated fees and room and board costs are considered. The universities approved segregated fees in April.

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.