UW-Madison will offer more summer courses and research opportunities in the coming year, Chancellor Rebecca Blank announced Thursday.
After high enrollment in the most recent Summer Term, Blank said she hopes the effort will satisfy the growing student demand for courses and improve overall graduation rates by allowing students to stay on track in their degree programs — or even graduate early.
“We want students to graduate on time whenever possible. That reduces debt and moves them into their careers more quickly,” Blank said. “We expect this investment to pay off for Wisconsin and beyond as these students contribute to the next great breakthroughs in their fields.”
The changes to Summer Term have also become a significant source of tuition revenue for the university, according to Blank.
“[These changes] allowed the university to use more of its facilities year-round, and expanded our tuition revenues by 35 percent over the two-year period,” Blank said.
Summer Term is also hoping to expand its accessibility with increased scholarship funding, which Blank said will save students money during the term, as well as over the course of their academic careers.
Jeffrey Russell, dean of the UW-Madison Division of Continuing Studies, also hopes that Summer Term saves students time and money while offering them options that support their learning experience and academic goals.
“We want to reduce time to degree, we want to reduce student debt load and, by virtue, we want to be offering a unique educational experience,” he said.
After the UW-Madison Division of Continuing Studies began to make changes in their Summer Term programming in 2016, Blank said in a statement Thursday that total credit hours taken during Summer Term has increased 18 percent over the past two years.
Online courses especially have seen enrollment increases; according to Blank, participation in those classes almost doubled from 2015 to 2017.
Russell said that online courses’ flexible scheduling contributes to students’ high demand for them. In his role coordinating the expansion of Summer Term, Russell takes input from students and their colleges into account to create summer courses specific to their wants and needs.
“We look at student need and demand … and we look at all the courses that have waitlists or could be considered bottleneck courses,” he said. “It’s been a collaborative and engaging process, working with schools and colleges.”
