The Higher Educational Aids Board (HEAB) recently approved WAICU’s recommendation to double the appropriation for need-based aid funding for the Wisconsin Grant Program in the upcoming biennium.

This appropriation would support our Wisconsin Private Colleges students, given that funding for our sector has fallen significantly behind that of other midwestern states. You can read the complete recommendation.

Current funding is allocated at $57 million over the state budget biennium, and WAICU’s recommendation would bring the appropriation for students attending private, nonprofit institutions to $114 million on a biennial basis.

Last month WAICU President Eric W. Fulcomer presented the recommendations to the HEAB. He told the board that WAICU institutions do not receive operating funding to bring down the cost of tuition as do public institutions. President Fulcomer explained that financial aid to students is the only funding provided to low-income students to support their access to higher education at our Wisconsin private colleges.

WAICU’s research has found that the maximum Wisconsin Grant award to students at private, nonprofit four year institutions is now officially the lowest in the Midwest, which is strictly because of the budget constraints preventing us from increasing our maximum award further.

The appropriation for Wisconsin Grants for students in our sector represents less than two percent of all state funding for higher education.

President Fulcomer shared information about how WAICU-member campuses produce high-demand graduates and produce a quarter of all the undergraduate degrees in the state. He explained that providing aid to students is essential to incentivizing them to stay in Wisconsin to help meet Wisconsin’s workforce needs. He emphasized that state policy makers must align policies to support these workforce requirements and provide this critical support to students.

By 2031, nearly seventy percent of all jobs will require postsecondary education and training, according to the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce. President Fulcomer also told the board that strong public support exists for increasing need-based grants. In a recent survey, eighty percent of Americans indicated that they support increasing need-based grant aid to support low-income students at the state and federal level for students to access postsecondary education.

This is just a first step in the process. WAICU will now work with Governor Tony Evers to include an increase in the Wisconsin Grant Private Nonprofit appropriation in his biennial budget recommendations. We also will work with the Legislature and the Legislature’s budget committee, the Joint Committee on Finance, asking them to support the recommendation.

Please help advocate for this increase to the Wisconsin Grants Program appropriation by adding your name here.