According to Wisconsin Public Radio, about $100 million in private donations for an engineering building planned at UW–Madison are at risk after Republican lawmakers cut the project from the state budget.
The engineering building — a $347 million project — was first included in Gov. Evers’ 2021–23 capital budget recommendations and included again in his current proposal.
GOP members of the Joint Finance Committee approved about $2.4 billion for capital building projects last week — including $285 million for a Camp Randall Sports Center replacement at UW–Madison and a $231 million science building at UW–Eau Claire — but pulled the engineering building after it had been singled out as the top priority for the university and the UW System.
Around 8,000 students apply to UW–Madison’s engineering programs annually, but due to space constraints, only around 1,200 can be admitted.
There are about 4,500 engineering students enrolled at any given time, as compared to peer schools like Purdue University, the University of Illinois, Penn State, and Michigan State, which typically have been 6,000–9,000 engineering students enrolled.
The new building would allow UW–Madison to enroll an additional 1,000 undergraduate engineering students and a total of 2,000 graduate students.
