Leadership at UW–Stevens Point warns that its Marshfield and Wausau branch campuses will not survive without increases in enrollment, which has plummeted almost 70% over the past 13 years, the Wisconsin State Journal reports. Thomas Gibson, the university’s chancellor, said in a viability report the spring to UW President Jay Rothman that alternative revenue strategies, like renting space to community groups and other UW organizations, will not make up for the hundreds of thousands of dollars the campuses are collectively losing each year.
Together, the campuses in Marshfield and Wausau are expected to have $1.59 million in debt by 2024’s end. Next year, Marshfield will fall short by an additional $190,000, and Wausau by almost $1 million.
The university uses only 25% of available space at the branch campuses, with only a small number of classrooms used for more than half of the day and the majority empty for two-thirds or more of the day. In 2010, the Marshfield and Wausau campuses — at that time under the UW Colleges umbrella — saw a collective enrollment of 2,121 students; by last fall, under UW–Stevens Point, they shared an enrollment number of only 647 students; and as of late April, when the report was submitted, Marshfield had 95 applications and 44 acceptances for fall 2024. Wausau saw 124 applications and 51 acceptances.
The news comes as UW has seen a rapid pace of branch campus closures since November 2022.
