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The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee will close its Waukesha branch campus at the end of the spring 2025 semester, according to a letter UW-Milwaukee Chancellor Mark Mone sent to employees and students on Monday.
Mone cited ongoing enrollment and budgetary struggles, adding that the decision was driven by a “directive from the Universities of Wisconsin.”
His letter said that enrollment at the UW-Milwaukee branch campus in Waukesha had fallen 65 percent over the past decade, compounded by a 13 percent decline in new students for fall 2023 and a 10 percent lag in applications for fall 2024.
“Although we had truly hoped and believed that we would be able to continue long-term operations at the Waukesha campus, the data and financial realities do not allow for this,” Mone wrote.
While the per-student cost at Waukesha is the same as on the main campus in Milwaukee, he noted, Waukesha students pay only about half as much tuition.
“This is unsustainable,” he wrote.
More than 100 employees will be affected by the closure.
UW-Milwaukee will partner with the Waukesha County Technical College to continue to provide higher education opportunities in the region, Mone said.
Waukesha is the fifth two-year branch campus in the Universities of Wisconsin system to close or move online in the past 18 months, the Associated Press reported.
