The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents approved chancellor pay raises and bonuses for student retention in a closed session meeting Monday.
The new compensation plan will see UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin’s current $811,512 annual salary increased to $892,663. She will also receive a philanthropic bonus of $150,000 for staying at UW-Madison through mid-2025 and $50,000 for each year she stays afterward until June 2029.
Other UW chancellors will receive between 2-5% annual increases in their salary alongside bonuses of up to 15% for hitting their freshman-to-sophomore retention goals each year.
The plan is designed to address the UW System’s falling student retention rates, with nine of thirteen UW schools experiencing declines within the last 10 years. UW schools especially struggled to retain BIPOC students in 2022, who were 6.6% less likely to return for a second year compared to all students.
“To best address the challenges in higher education, the UWs must keep talent and reward performance in the key area of student retention,” UW System spokesperson Mark Pitsch told the Wisconsin State Journal Tuesday.
The new raise program follows consistent financial difficulties for the UW System brought on by declining student enrollment rates and long-term state funding decreases. Regents voted to raise tuition by around 4% for the second consecutive year last April in order to address budget deficits.
But critics of the program argued it unfairly compensates UW System chancellors in lieu of mass layoffs and multiple campus closings. Professor Jon Shelton of UW-Green Bay told The Daily Cardinal he believes “virtually every chancellor” within the system failed to advocate for the “irreplaceable” value lost through faculty and staff layoffs.
“Austerity is a political choice, not an inevitability,” Shelton said. “It is staggering to think that [while] faculty who remain receive meager raises below the rate of inflation, hurting our students, chancellors are rewarded so lucratively.”
As part of his next budget proposal, Gov. Tony Evers said he will request an $800 million increase in state funding for the UW System. The Board of Regents also intends to seek pay increases for all UW employees through that budget in August, according to UW System President Jay Rothman.
“The direct impact these individuals have on students is life-changing [...] they should be better compensated for this critical work,” Rothman said in a tweet.
