UW-Milwaukee Retention Rates Fall Below Average Post-Pandemic

UW-Milwaukee’s retention rates have fallen to 72.1%, according to the University of Wisconsin Education Reports, nearly three percentage points lower than the College Vine national average of 75%. The Education Reports puts UWM’s retention rate more than 10 points behind the UW-System average retention of 82.6%.

The University of Wisconsin Education Reports database shows that in 2018 UWM’s retention rate rose to 76.5%, which was the first time that Wisconsin’s second-largest public school was above 75% since 1989 when the rate was 77.6%.

2018’s rate was a sign of retention rates being on the rise for UWM following a near-twenty-year low of 69.5% in 2011. However, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have steered some college students away.

“I think [COVID] gave students a lot of time to sit with themselves,” said Dallas Erickson, a senior Journalism student at UWM, in an exclusive Media Milwaukee interview. “I really thought ‘Am I happy with where I am right now?’ That’s kind of what it did for me, and I wouldn’t have changed it for anything.”

Erickson attended UWM for three and a half years until 2020 when he dropped out, citing the onslaught of the pandemic and uncertainty in what he wanted to pursue as a career as reasons for withdrawing from his education.

Erickson would return to UWM in 2022 and is now set to graduate with a Journalism BA in a matter of days as part of UWM’s December 2024 class. However, this was not always the case as the 26-year-old decided to drop out of college at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, turning to small business ownership.

“I think [work experience] showed me that I’m going to learn by doing,” said Erickson. “I went back because I wanted that skill set and knowledge of how business works.”

Throughout the 2010s, UWM’s retention rate had been on the rise, steadily increasing from 69.5% in 2011 to 75.2% in 2019, according to the University of Wisconsin Education Reports. However, that has since changed as the 2020 retention rate of 75.6% plummeted to just 71.8% in 2021.

Something that many students have been sensitive about in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic is the high cost of college, which may be a major contributor to diminishing retention rates.

Colectivo manager AJ Arteche, 29, dropped out of UWM in May 2014. While he is interested in reexamining the benefits of higher education, high tuition costs have been a driving force keeping him away, he said during a Media Milwaukee interview. Additionally, Arteche has noticed people in his social circle feel threatened by the cost that most schools demand.

“I had a few friends in high school who enlisted in the military for the benefit of free college or got married to receive better financial aid,” said Arteche. “I completely understand why my friends made those choices… However, what is not fair is that people must put themselves in extreme positions for the sake of financial stability. It is just a reflection of how many people cannot afford a college education these days, even if loans are involved.”

Arteche recently applied to return to school, choosing the often-cost-efficient Milwaukee Area Technical College instead of completing his education at UWM. In addition to the low costs, Arteche described the ability to pursue a more specific degree and obtain greater job opportunities as driving forces steering him away from UWM.

“I have taken more time to discover a passion for computers and I am looking to pursue MATC’s Computer Simulation Gaming program,” said Arteche. “As I’ve been looking for other job opportunities, many of them require degrees. It’s insane.”

According to the University of Wisconsin Education Reports, UW-Milwaukee is currently falling behind several other UW-System institutions in terms of retention rates. UW-Madison is currently the highest ranked with a 94.5% retention rate. Other comparable schools are UW-La Crosse at 85.7%, UW-Eau Claire at 81.9% and UW-Platteville at 80.4%.

At the time of writing, the lowest retention rate for a UW-System school is UW-Superior at 70.7%. A close second is UW-Parkside at 71.3%.

Earlier this year, Forbes placed Milwaukee as the fifth best city for college students to live and study. This may have been in part due to Marquette University’s recently strong retention rates. According to Marquette Today’s most recent report, the private university’s retention rate is 91.4%, the second highest in the school’s history.