By Tom Still
MADISON, Wis. – These are not the easiest of times in America’s higher education business, public or private.
Demographic fallout from the Great Recession of 2008 means fewer domestic students are coming of college age. Visa restrictions are crimping the supply of foreign students after years of growth. Federal research spending is generally down. With demand rising for many vocational trades, some young adults are attending a technical college or finding another training route.
With challenges on all fronts, it’s a good time for Wisconsin’s 22 private colleges to collectively pitch their economic and academic value. It’s not a bad pitch.
The Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities recently released a report that showed a combined $5.4 billion in economic impact during the 2024-25 academic year by the 22 institutions it represents. It was authored by a consultant who once worked for Columbia College Chicago and who has written similar reports for WAICU counterparts in Illinois and Indiana.
While economic impact reports can be subjective, the reported numbers paint a sizable statewide picture.
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WAICU colleges produced $2.71 billion in direct spending and another $2.72 billion in indirect or “induced” spending.
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They employ 18,600 faculty and staff statewide and support more than 39,000 other jobs.
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A little more than half of the 52,800 enrolled students in 2024-25 came from Wisconsin, but historically about two-thirds stay upon graduation. That helps replenish the workforce.
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Despite their nonprofit status, these colleges generated $788 million in federal, state and local taxes, including sales, income and payroll taxes.
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The estimated 236,116 private alumni who live in the state generate $41 billion in economic activity each year.
One goal of the report is to impress upon members of the Legislature to keep or expand tuition scholarships for WAICU students. Wisconsin’s tuition grants are about half of what’s offered to private college students in Minnesota and Illinois.
A larger purpose is to convince potential students and their families that private colleges aren’t just about liberal arts, but sources of degrees in nursing, medicine, engineering, dentistry, business, data analytics and other disciplines in demand.
“The report offers a clear indication of what we can do,” said Eric Fulcomer, WAICU president and chief executive officer.
Students can also earn degrees in artificial intelligence, too, but Fulcomer sees studies in AI being integrated throughout a range of courses. For example, he said, AI will “completely transform health care” from how appointments are handled to developing treatment plans.
He doesn’t deny there are pressures. Northland College in Ashland closed in 2025 and Cardinal Stritch University in the Milwaukee area shut down in 2023. Demographic issues won’t go away, either.
“In the next 20 years, it’s not going to get any better,” Fulcomer said.
A recent study by the Huron Consulting Group – a national firm that specializes in higher education – confirms that demographic fact. It predicted the dwindling number of prospective students will force as many as 370 private colleges in the United States to shutter or merge with another institution in the next decade.
“Essentially the problem is we have too many seats in too many classrooms and not enough prospective students to fill them,” Peter Stokes, a managing director at Huron, told Financial Advisor in September 2025. “Over the next decade, we’re going through a very painful but necessary re-balancing in supply and demand.”
Public universities aren’t immune from that crunch, either, as witnessed by the Universities of Wisconsin planned closings of two-year campuses in Baraboo, the Fox Cities and Waukesha.
Fulcomer believes his best argument is the value of a WAICU degree. Those 22 private schools aren’t just preparing students for their first jobs after education, he said, but a career that will likely span several jobs or more.
Leveraging such differences, small or otherwise, could keep more of Wisconsin’s private colleges and universities in business. In a competitive national climate, stable private colleges in Wisconsin may help to keep more state natives at home.
Still is the past president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. He is an advisor to Competitive Wisconsin Inc., a non-profit policy group.