UWM is Not ‘Transfer Friendly,’ Dean Says

Despite struggles with the microphone, Scott Gronert, dean of the College of Letters and Science at UW-Milwaukee, did not struggle stating that transfer enrollment is down 10 percent.

The town hall format allowed Gronert to present what is happening in the college, while allowing feedback from an open discussion.

“We are not a transfer friendly institution,” said Gronert.

UWM receives most of its transfer students from Milwaukee Area Technical College, UW-Waukesha County, UW-Washington County and Madison Area Technical College, according to Gronert.

“After the top four, about one-third of our transfer students are coming from institutions that send us 1-2 students,” said Gronert.

Many of those institutions have been community colleges in Illinois.

“One of the things that has been very helpful to UWM in recent years has been the chaos in Illinois with their budget,” said Gronert. “The fact that Illinois has such high in-state tuition, we have been able to recruit a lot of students from the Chicago general area.”

Gronert has been interested in graduation and retention rates since he arrived last August.

“In terms of quality, currently about 50% of our transfer students will graduate,” said Gronert.

Fifty percent may not seem substantial, but, when compared to the campus, the College of Letters and Science is trailing.

“We’re not fairing so well here,” said Gronert.

In 2017, the four-year graduation rate was only 15%, and the six-year graduation rate was 44%, according to Gronert.

Due to policy changes that lowered the minimum GPA to graduate, in 2019 the four-year graduation rate increased to 24%, according to Gronert.  

While graduation rate increases, senior population decreases. Seniors are the largest demographic for the college. And because of how everything is connected, as the number of students goes down, so does faculty, according to Gronert.

“For L&S there is a silver lining,” said Gronert. “One of the reasons we have a lower head count this fall than last year is because we graduated an extra 90 students.”

According to the UWM facts database, 6,057 students are enrolled in the College of Letters of Science.

“This summer was exciting in terms of looking at our enrollment,” said Gronert. “This year we were very hopeful on our freshmen.”

There was a 4-5% increase in freshman applicants, according to Gronert.

As far as retention of students goes, the college has been consistently around 74%, according to Gronert.

“That is a challenge, because it means 26% of our students didn’t come back a second year,” said Gronert.

Three points were focused on to increase student success.

Changes in advising have been in the works; as well as, the streamlining the process of declaring a major, according to Gronert.

The new process should be available online to students in around two months, according to Interim Director, Dan Siercks.

The other key point is adapting the degree requirements in the college.

Not only is the College of Letters and Science difficult for new student transfers, but it is also a challenge for current UW-Milwaukee students to transfer from a different college inside the university.

“By changing the way we do things, we can see measurable impact here on how the students move through our programs,” said Gronert.