The Wisconsin State Journal recently utilized the expertise of UW-Madison’s Nick Hillman and the work of two of his graduate students, Jared Colston and Josh Bach-Hanson, to examine issues related to dwindling enrollment and access to higher education for rural students at some Wisconsin campuses.
Hillman is an associate professor with the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, and serves as the director of the Student Success Through Applied Research Lab (SSTAR Lab).
The Stat Journal begins by noting: “Most students attend college within 50 miles of home. So what happens if a college isn’t close by? Educational opportunities become more out of reach, especially for students who may be older, have child-care duties or attend college part time. The University of Wisconsin System restructured its branch campuses — its small universities that attract a large share of the state’s nontraditional students — to avoid the closures that threaten other small institutions because of enrollment decline.”
“We’re committed to maintaining these campuses,” System president Ray Cross tells the State Journal. “We’re going to do everything we can. It’s just too important. These communities need them.”
The State Journal continues: “Yet many of the branch campuses have fewer students enrolled than at any point during the past 45 years. What effect would closing one or more of them have on access to higher education?”
The newspaper then turns to the expertise of Hillman, who has studied so-called “education deserts,” places that lack easy access to higher education.
The State Journal explains that there isn’t a broadly accepted definition of an education desert, so two of Hillman’s doctoral students, Colston and Bach-Hanson, used criteria Hillman has used in his previous research. Their analysis excluded private institutions and any with an acceptance rate lower than 80 percent because these colleges — for reasons related to affordability or selectivity — wouldn’t be considered viable options by many local students.
“We can use these large national data sets to define deserts, but any analysis is unable to fully capture the nuances that a rural campus offers its community,” Bach-Hanson explains to the State Journal. “Where would students go instead? That’s not something we can get through statistical analysis.”
To learn more about this important but nuanced topic, check out the full Wisconsin State Journal article here.