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• The federal Child Care Access Means Parents in School Program helped Wisconsin technical colleges provide subsidized child care to student parents. 
• But the U.S. Department of Education awarded just 40 grants this year — a significant drop compared to previous years. 
• No Wisconsin schools received grant funding in the latest round. 
• College officials say students are already cutting their course loads or looking for other ways to pay increased child care costs.

For years, the bills Devvin Thomas Sr. received each semester for his son’s child care at Madison College have been a fraction of what families typically pay: $400 one semester. $10 for another. Sometimes, no bill at all. 

The reduced-cost child care has allowed Thomas to study for his small business entrepreneurship degree and work toward his dream of owning a cafe and soup kitchen.

But this month, that changed. The federal government declined to award grants that have long helped Wisconsin technical college students like Thomas pay for child care while they study for their degrees. Now, student parents across Wisconsin are enrolling in fewer classes, rethinking their semester plans and scrambling to pay the bills. 

For Thomas, the change means a $1,700 bill — a “shock to the system.”

“We’re doing what we can to keep him there. … Outside of paying the mortgage, we just put his tuition and stuff first,” Thomas said. “Even if that means paying the electric bill late or not at all this month.” 

At Madison College, some families have pulled their children from campus child care or reduced their course loads to accommodate cheaper care options. Officials at Madison, Milwaukee and Western technical colleges are searching for other funding sources to help parents remain in school.

“If there’s nobody to take care of their children, they will not be able to be in class,” Madison College President Jennifer Berne said.

The loss comes as child care remains a major expense for Wisconsin families. 

The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families estimates the average cost to put an infant in a child care center is over $17,400 per year — nearly a quarter of the median Wisconsinite’s household income. 

For years, the federal Child Care Access Means Parents in School Program, or CCAMPIS, helped ease that burden for hundreds of Wisconsin families. CCAMPIS grants covered 75% to 95% of participating parents’ child care bills, according to college officials. The funding also helped colleges expand child care services and train more workers for child care jobs. 

Now, no colleges in Wisconsin will receive that funding — adding another obstacle for parents trying to advance their education and careers, college officials say. Berne worries it will take student parents longer to finish their studies — or that it will prevent them from doing so.  

“This is just a small part of the broader child care crisis nationally,” said Liz Wallace, director of grants at Western Technical College in La Crosse.

A ‘shocking’ change

The CCAMPIS program has been around since 1999.

It’s a competitive grant usually given in four-year cycles. Colleges must make a case for how they’ll use the funds to establish or support campus-based child care programs, particularly for low-income students.

Colleges have come to rely on the funding when planning their child care services, said Stephanie Baker, a higher education senior policy manager at left-leaning think tank New America. Many schools launch programs dependent largely on the funds.

But the program has had a rocky few years. The Biden administration did not hold a grant competition in 2024, and the Trump administration did not hold one in 2025 and proposed eliminating the program entirely.

“That wasn’t predictable for colleges, and that’s been difficult if you’re trying to plan for how to build out your child care services to serve parenting students and compete for those funds,” Baker said. 

The U.S. Department of Education opened a competition for four-year grants this year, planning to award 148 schools. While the number of anticipated awards was down by about 50 to 180 grants compared to recent years, the actual number of awards — 40 — was far lower, according to federal documents. Madison, Milwaukee and Western technical colleges were among the nearly 250 schools that applied and didn’t make the cut. No Wisconsin schools received funds. 

“It was shocking to see just over a quarter of the awards they anticipated making. It’s really a betrayal of parenting students in college who, again bipartisan members of Congress want to support,” Baker said. “They keep increasing funds because they want to reach more parents in college and help them access child care that keeps them in school.”

It was disappointing news for officials at Madison College, a school that first received CCAMPIS funds in 2005. When they received a letter last week about the rejection, it said the college earned a perfect score for its use of grant money in previous years, but offered no explanation for the rejection.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., slammed the move in a letter to the Department of Education and cited how the loss of funding will hurt students at Madison College.

What’s lost

Thomas wanted to go back to college to show his two sons that it’s never too late. 

“I’ve always wanted to cook. I’ve been cooking since I was 5 years old,” he said. “(I wanted) to show my kids that you can do whatever you want to do, regardless of your situation.”

“You are never too big or too old to follow your dreams.”

For low-income student parents, the grants have helped make it possible to balance child care costs with the demands of earning a degree. At Madison College, roughly 120 students have used CCAMPIS support to complete their degrees since 2018.

This semester, families of 34 children at Madison College were set to receive assistance through the program. At Western Technical College, roughly 100 students use grant funding for on-campus child care each year.

Now, colleges worry about how they’ll help those families without the federal money.

Madison College has offered on-campus child care since 1989 and has made three expansions to accommodate more student and employee parents. It opened a new $10 million facility this year. It also used the money to stock a “baby basic needs closet,” where students could take free diapers, formula, wipes and lactation supplies. The on-campus location allows some mothers to drop in between classes to breastfeed their children, campus child care administrator Donna Jost said. 

For community and technical colleges, these services — while difficult to provide and fund — are especially important. Their students are more likely to be parenting children than university students. Many colleges don’t track exactly how many of their students are parents, but Kari Reyburn, Western’s director of student life, equity and engagement, estimated that parents could account for as much as half of the student population at some technical colleges.

Student parents are particularly vulnerable to dropping out, Reyburn said. They perform well in their courses. But their responsibilities outside of school make it difficult to keep the momentum to finish their studies. 

“This is the type of student we serve as a community and technical college,” Reyburn said. “I just really feel like this is the lever. If you can figure out how to serve this group, remove these barriers and get them to completion, it means everything for our communities and their individual economic vitality.”

‘Plug has been pulled’

The funding loss could also affect colleges’ ability to expand child care services and strengthen the workforce that provides it.

Child care workers are hard to find because the job pays little and often doesn’t come with health care benefits. 

Western had plans to use the grant money for staff retention bonuses and to hire more students through apprenticeships and internships.  

“The plug has been pulled. Our students … are able to come to us and say, ‘Hey, I’m coming to Western because this is a resource you’re providing,’ and all of a sudden we have to go, ‘Sorry, we don’t have it,’ and we’re scrambling to find a solution in the interim,” Wallace said. “That’s the exponential challenge. They broke this continuity of service for a number of institutions across the nation.”

At Madison College, officials worry that losing the funding will make it harder to fill seats at the new child care center on the Goodman South campus. They hoped it would serve more low-income families in the area. Without the funding, they may have to rely more heavily on families who can afford to pay full price.

Madison College also had big hopes of piloting “sometimes child care” — a drop-in service for parents to leave their children for short periods while they take a test or talk to an adviser. 

“Without this funding, it’s going to be very difficult for us to move forward on that new programming,” Berne said. 

Milwaukee Area Technical College also operates a drop-in day care, where students can drop their children off for up to three hours while they complete school tasks. The kids play, do crafts or enjoy tummy time while their parents talk with tutors or attend school events. MATC hoped to use the CCAMPIS funds to subsidize this service and expand child care tuition assistance. 

“Without continued funding, student-parents face increased financial challenges and reduced access to the child care resources that help them remain enrolled, complete their programs, and achieve their educational and career goals,”  MATC Public Relations Director Darryll Fortune said in a statement.

Help wanted

In the meantime, the colleges are scrambling to help students pay their child care bills through private donations and other funding sources.

The Madison College Foundation gifted $30,000 to help the families cover 25% of costs this semester. It doesn’t compare to the roughly $300,000 in federal dollars they’ve gotten annually for the last four years, but it helps. College officials are also talking with legislators to explain the “difficult position we’re in,” Berne said. 

“If you want parents to better themselves to where they can make more money, to where they can buy more things, you have to give them the tools to be able to do so, not take those tools away,” Thomas said. 

If people with children can’t finish their schooling because of child care costs, “we’ll never have a community that is equitable, where everybody has access to the kinds of jobs (they want), and we won’t have a community that has people to fulfill the jobs that we need,” Berne said.  

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Find her on Instagram and Twitter, or send her an email at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

Federal child care funding loss leaves Wisconsin student parents scrambling to stay in school is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• The New Friends program at the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute has paired people with early-stage Alzheimer’s and dementia with UW-Madison students. 
• The students will go into careers as nurses, doctors, therapists or social workers.
• Mentors, students and program leaders say the program is mutually beneficial: The semester-long program gives students firsthand experience being around someone who lives with mild cognitive issues, and the mentors get social connection during what can be a lonely time. 
• New Friends also helps dispel myths about people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and dementia, many of whom are able to live independently, hold jobs, socialize with friends and raise kids or grandkids.

The first sign seemed harmless. 

Bill Ducett drove his carload of friends in the opposite direction of the Chicago conference where they were headed. His wife Diana — a nurse — watched out the car window, concerned, as they passed unfamiliar streets. When she corrected Bill, embarrassment washed over him as he quickly turned the car around.

It was a small slipup, unless you know Bill: a 78-year-old with a razor-sharp internal compass and an Illinois native who knows the city like the back of his hand. 

Diana convinced Bill to go to the doctor. After five hours of testing, he emerged with a diagnosis: mild cognitive impairment, and a prescription: car GPS. 

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Now, for three years, Bill has met with medical students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to talk about what it’s like to live with an early-stage Alzheimer’s diagnosis.  

The program, dubbed New Friends, has for 14 years connected people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and dementia with future medical professionals to learn from one another. 

The goal is to teach future health care workers lessons they can’t gain from coursework alone: firsthand experience with people living with cognitive changes outside of a classroom and  textbook. Many of the participating students go on to be nurses, doctors, therapists or social workers. Together, they help challenge misconceptions about dementia and work toward better care for patients experiencing it.

“I thought I could be, with my own journey, helping to be productive for somebody else to do something about this. So the motivation was to give back. But in giving back, I’m getting so many benefits,” Bill said. 

As Wisconsin’s population ages, elder care workers are in short supply, and even rarer are those with prior experience with Alzheimer’s and dementia. The arrangement is mutually beneficial: Students get experience connecting with people living with cognitive changes, and mentors get social connection during a particularly lonely time. 

“Oftentimes medical students are really good at the medicine side of things, but their bedside manner or their understanding of people living with dementia wasn’t the best,” said Sheryl Spensley, education coordinator at UW-Madison’s Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.

How it works 

The program started small in 2012. Since then, it’s grown exponentially, and more than 300 students have participated. Usually, each mentor takes on two students. 

Spensley plays matchmaker, pairing students and mentors who have the most in common. 

The meetups look different for every pair. Some gather at the mentor’s home to sit and talk. Others go to parks, coffee shops, restaurants or museums. Some opt for more activity, watching sports, going bowling or playing board games. Bill and Diana’s “friends” have chosen to paint pottery together or attend plays put on by Bill’s son, a teacher at their local school in Oregon, Wisconsin. 

There are logistics to navigate that students usually don’t consider in their everyday lives: How will the mentor get to the meeting? Is there suitable parking and seating? Is the meeting place too loud or overstimulating?  

“That’s a good learning experience about how differently abled people have to navigate the world, capacity to get in and out of places, and how much time that takes for people,” Spensley said.

All mentors are squarely in the early stages of dementia. In the mid to late stages, communication becomes more challenging, people may live in an assisted living facility, and reflecting on what they’re experiencing can be difficult. 

“For some it can be more emotionally distressing at that point,” said Molly Schroeder, outreach program manager at the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute who helps coordinate New Friends.

Much of the conversation can tend to revolve around the mentor, as students ask about things like the logistics of their medical care or their everyday hurdles, but former mentee Meghana Ram said they also often just talked as friends. She found the meetups felt less like an interview and more like a social hangout. 

Some of the mentors have caregivers who join and talk about their responsibilities and careers. Technically, Diana joins the meetings as Bill’s mentor.

“She’s a caregiver, but you know, she’s more of a commentator,” Bill joked. 

Throughout the semester-long process, students keep a journal where they reflect on what their mentors teach them. They also take surveys before and after the program measuring their attitudes toward people with cognitive decline — questions like, “how comfortable would you be sitting one on one with someone with dementia?” By the end, students’ perceptions grow more positive. 

Dispelling myths, challenging stigma

When Bill started telling his neighbors and friends about his diagnosis, he felt their sympathy. But he also noticed that they became uncomfortable and started “pulling back” from him.

“They don’t know what to say,” Diana said of people who learn about Bill’s diagnosis. “They’re afraid of how they’ll be interpreted … They feel sorry for both of us. They’re a little too afraid to get involved.” 

Nowadays, the symptoms Bill experiences are small and often harmless: forgetting that he made a cup of coffee for Diana until the cup is cooled. Temporarily losing his keen sense of direction. But he still drives, still attends his son’s plays, still lives his life mostly as normal. 

During dementia’s early stages, people often experience confusion or small memory lapses that don’t always impact their ability to live independently. Many with this early diagnosis still have jobs and social lives and are raising kids or grandkids, Schroeder said. 

But many people don’t realize that, she said, “because unfortunately, a lot of what we see in the media is, we see people more at the later stages in a nursing home, sitting in a wheelchair in front of a TV. But there are years before that where it doesn’t look like that at all.” 

Bill doesn’t feel that same judgment with the New Friends students. They meet him with pure curiosity. He’s mentored eight students over three years.

“I was a school teacher. I was a professor in education. I mentored students in their 20s,” Bill said. “So I meet with these future medical professionals because I can get back in teaching mode. For me, it’s all very comfortable.”

Students say the program dispels many of the myths about dementia they once held, mostly regarding what someone’s daily life must look like after diagnosis.

“Culturally, how we look at the elderly, it’s not good,” Spensley said. “This program shows students that even when you have early-stage dementia, you still have things to contribute to society and things you can learn. That’s why they’re called mentors.”

‘Different than just a textbook definition’

When Ram worked as a CNA at an assisted living facility throughout high school, she kept meeting dementia patients, and she didn’t feel she had the tools to fully connect with them. 

After enrolling at UW-Madison, she joined the New Friends program to improve her communication with patients.

For a year, she set aside time to play at an arcade and go out to eat with her mentors. She asked questions like: “How did you react to the diagnosis? How did you tell your family? Has your social life changed?” 

The answers showed her the importance of establishing a personal connection with patients.

“A lot of these patients don’t necessarily have someone to talk to or have someone to listen to them,” Ram said. “By doing that, you can learn so much of what each individual person needs … to make them feel better. Realizing that the experience of this illness looks so different from person to person, and that sometimes it needs a tailored approach, and that only comes with building that trust and having those conversations and listening.” 

Ram loved the program so much that when she moved home to Green Bay, she started a mini version with local students. 

The program ran for two years in partnership with Curative Connections, a support program for adults with dementia or other cognitive issues. It ended when Ram moved to Wausau to study to become a physician’s assistant. But she hopes to restart something similar someday.

“(I wanted to) go into those patient rooms with better communication methods, or remembering more of the experience, not only for me, but for the patient, too, and maybe for family members,” Ram said. “I think understanding the experience of a disease is so much more different than just a textbook definition of it. Getting to hear that from patients firsthand is really neat.” 

Like Ram, not every student will go on to become a caregiver for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients. But they’ll be prepared when coming across people with cognitive changes, whether they be patients, family members or perfect strangers.

“Whether that’s at a restaurant, a bank, the grocery store,” Schroeder said, “it’s important to know how to communicate and support those individuals.”

But it isn’t just about preparing students for the people they’ll meet in the future. 

Many of the New Friends pairs end up forming a bond and keep in touch after their time in the program ends. Ram said she and her mentors kept in touch for a while by texting each other photos and updates about their lives. Bill and Diana follow where their students go after graduation and look forward to meeting more, semester after semester. 

“We feel that those young people have enriched our lives so much,” Diana said. “They keep us looking forward to the next set of friends.”

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Find her on Instagram and Twitter, or send her an email at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

How Alzheimer’s and dementia patients teach Wisconsin’s next generation of health care workers is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Federal funding cuts forced Literacy Green Bay leaders to reduce the number of classes they offer from 15 to eight and to stop offering child care.
• But the need for services has only increased: The organization has a 300-person waitlist. 
• To offer students more casual ways to practice English, Literacy Green Bay hosts a monthly informal gathering at a downtown Green Bay coffee shop. 
• Community members and students speak for an hour in English about their families, their work and more.

Halfway through her English language class on an early September morning, teacher Sierra Susa asked each of her adult students to write down a positive affirmation on a sticky note.

One by one, the students, hailing from roughly 10 countries, stuck the light green papers to a hallway wall:

“I help and encourage others.”

“I like learning new things and my family is my whole world.” 

“A veces pensar mucho no es buena idea (Sometimes thinking too much is not a good idea).”

“I am studying hard! I will be a nursing assistant!”

“English is really difficult. … When you are having a bad day, you can walk by and say, ‘OK. I’ve got motivation. I feel better,’” Susa said.

That day, roughly two dozen students gathered in a basement classroom at Literacy Green Bay, the city’s largest resource for helping immigrants, refugees and other adults learn English as a second language.

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Demand is only growing for the organization’s services, which help residents learn to use a computer, study for a citizenship test or speak English well enough to attend school or find work.

But the nonprofit took a major blow recently, when the Trump administration slashed billions in federal funding and gutted refugee resettlement programs. That’s trickled down to funding losses for Literacy Green Bay, leading it to cut its services nearly in half: It has reduced from 15 ESL classes to eight, stopped offering child care and has a 300-person waitlist. 

In the aftermath, the staff has turned to the surrounding community for help — with funding and with helping students sharpen their skills. As immigration enforcement and anti-immigrant rhetoric draw more attention nationwide, they’re making an even stronger effort to be visible in the community and squash the stigma around being an adult English learner.

“It’s very hard for most of our students to break out of their bubble. A lot of them will just work and go home. … Some of them don’t have anybody else,” Development and Communications Coordinator Grace Hageman said. “And so this is where they come to get community, this is where they make friends and this is people coming from all across the world that get to hang out together.”

Hub for immigrants, refugees

In 1981, Literacy Green Bay launched as an initiative of volunteers helping integrate Hmong refugees who recently settled in the area by providing English language education.

Four decades and thousands of students from nearly 100 countries later, Hageman said Literacy Green Bay is well-known among local immigrant and refugee communities.

“We can be one of the first stops for people as they’re getting settled and they’re looking for opportunities to grow, but that’s definitely not all of our students,” she said. “For some, it could be years of living in Green Bay speaking limited to no English until they sign up for classes.”

The largest share of students at the school are Hispanic, followed by Somali, Afghan, Syrian and Ukrainian refugees. All are adults. 

All of Literacy Green Bay’s services are low-cost to students — they pay a $65 fee to begin and are also asked to purchase books for $35. But if a student can’t afford that, the school will find a way to cover the cost.

The school’s classes begin at a level considered “pre-literate,” for people who don’t know how to read, write or use a computer in their native language — often women from Pakistan and Somalia who never went to school. 

“We start at that level of people just learning how to hold a pencil,” Hageman said.

From there, Literacy Green Bay’s classes span through level 3. To a native English speaker, this skill level looks like someone who can generally be able to participate in a basic conversation, while still being apparent that they are learning English. ESL programs at local technical colleges generally begin where Literacy Green Bay leaves off, meaning students must enroll to continue learning English.

Literacy Green Bay also offers a volunteer-based, one-on-one adult tutoring service, which about 100 people utilize. These sessions are tailored to each person’s goals and might include preparing for a citizenship test, learning computer skills, studying for a driver’s license, doing homework or conducting a job search.

Across the board, the school focuses on helping students navigate a community that isn’t designed for non-English speakers.

“That’s a big misconception of what happens in the classrooms here. It’s not like we’re just having them read and write,” Hageman said. “They’re learning how to go to the bank. They’re learning how to talk to a doctor.”

The classes also provide social connection for students, who spend two days a week together and often forge friendships.

Potlucks are common and a favorite way for students to connect and share their cultures with one another. On that Wednesday morning in September, student Ikuko Mader brought a meal of taco rice to share with everyone. Originally from Okinawa, Japan, Mader moved to Green Bay for love: Her husband is a former Marine from Wisconsin. She said the food is what she misses most about her home country — not just Japanese food, but the amount of choice she had in restaurants.

Today, Mader takes classes at Literacy Green Bay to better communicate with her family, who speaks English.

“I married and have kids that use English, but my English is basic level. … Talking in detail about stuff (is hard),” Mader said. “Of course, in Japanese, I can, but when it’s English, it’s hard.”

Demand soars, funding dips

President Donald Trump made budget cuts his priority when he took office and targeted refugee resettlement programs, including those that funded refugee literacy programs in Wisconsin. 

For Literacy Green Bay, those measures cut deep. 

The school’s roughly $800,000 budget has largely been funded by federal grants. According to the organization’s 2023 financial report — the most recent available online — 38% of its revenue came from the federal government. 

In 2024, Literacy Green Bay received more than $150,000 in grant dollars from the Office of Refugee Resettlement. In 2025, that number dropped to $60,000. Funding ended altogether in July. 

Statewide, funding to Wisconsin Literacy — which distributes grants to organizations like Literacy Green Bay — declined from $2,857,703 in 2025 to $737,890 in 2026 because of federal cuts to the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Literacy Green Bay whittled its services from 15 English classes to eight. It opened a waitlist, which has stretched to 300 people waiting for basic English literacy education. 

Staff rearranged class schedules so everyone who was already enrolled in a program could stay and finish. Small barriers add up, Hageman said, and it’s easy for students to fall behind or stop showing up when things change.

“We want to keep things as consistent as possible for them,” Hageman said. ”These are folks who have at least been mildly inconvenienced for their entire life.”

The organization also had to eliminate free child care. Paid staff members used to watch children during morning and evening classes.

Bringing that resource back when they can afford it is a priority, staff said, because it’s a barrier that keeps students from attending class. Affordable child care is increasingly difficult to find — a search made more difficult when someone is still learning English. 

Meanwhile, demand for English education at Literacy Green Bay has climbed higher than school leaders can keep up with. 

“We will have three to four people a day come in, walk in off the street, and come sign up to be on the waitlist, or reach out online,” Hageman said.

From 2022 to 2024, people moving from outside of the country were the primary driver of Brown County’s population growth. That was no longer true last year, as immigration to the state plummeted under the Trump administration. 

‘They have all these skills’

While every student’s journey at Literacy Green Bay is deeply personal, many share a common goal: finding good work. 

“It’s like we have a community that exists here that nobody knows,” Hageman said. “People that most of the time are not out front and public-facing right now, especially at their jobs. They’re working their kitchens. They’re working back-of-house.”

For many, learning English is a step toward pursuing higher education — and, ultimately, the careers they want.

That’s true for Wedcia Jean, a student from Haiti, who told Wisconsin Watch she wants to study at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay before eventually opening her own public speaking business.

Others are simply trying to regain the socioeconomic standing they achieved in their home countries.

Student Carmen Hernandez holds a master’s degree in nursing from Mexico. Today, she’s learning English while working toward another nursing degree at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College so she can restart her career in the United States.

“There’s a lot of students that have master’s degrees, they’re doctors, they’re teachers, they’re very educated in their country, but then here they’re just working at JBS, cutting meat,” Susa said. “And it’s just very frustrating that English is really the only barrier. They have all these skills. That’s what I try to focus on is, trying to get them back to where they are, and so that English isn’t a barrier for their goal and their dream.”

For student Olver Corado, learning English is the key to being able to grow the career he already has.

Corado, from Guatemala, works as a general contractor and owns a construction company based in Appleton. The level 3 English student builds houses and repairs homes across northeast Wisconsin, but gets nervous talking to customers in English.

“I need to grow my business. It’s really important to learn English. I need to have good communication with customers … I don’t speak perfect English, but I’m smart,” Corado said. 

Letting students ‘live out loud’

These days, Literacy Green Bay staff are trying to “rebuild.”

After having to cut the number of classes, staff started thinking about how students could practice English in more casual ways. 

One tutor began meeting with his students at Kavarna, a staple coffee shop in downtown Green Bay. His students felt comfortable there, so he suggested inviting more students. 

Now, once a month, Literacy Green Bay hosts “Coffee, Culture and Conversation” – an informal gathering where students are paired with community members who come to talk with them in English. The school provides questions to get the conversation started, but from there, it flows naturally. 

At their mid-September event, there were about three eager attendees for every student. Students from Laos, Guatemala, Haiti and more practiced English by speaking with strangers for an hour about their families, their work and their paths to living in Green Bay, among other topics. 

“When I saw the advertisement, I’ve always been interested in having conversations like this: ‘Where are you from? Where have you been? Why are you here?’ Underneath, we’re all the same,” said Gayle Frame, a retiree, former Literacy Green Bay tutor and self-described “people person.”

After, students have another place in Green Bay they feel comfortable visiting and ordering at, because they’ve been welcomed there before.

“Especially with what our community can look like towards someone who’s trying, that’s beautiful to have the opportunity (where) they can feel comfortable,” Hageman said. 

The coffee events also offer a lower-barrier way for people to get involved. Previously, tutoring was one of the main ways community members could volunteer with the school, which requires a regular time commitment and preparation. Hageman said roughly 70% of the volunteers at the August event had never worked with Literacy Green Bay before.

That’s encouraging for Literacy Green Bay staff, especially as tensions around immigration flare nationwide. They’re wrestling with how visible the organization — and its students — should be. Should they advertise more? Should they post students on social media? How do they celebrate the people they serve without putting unwanted attention on them?

They don’t have the answers, Hageman said, but getting students out in the community with events like this is one way to help students “live out loud.”

“They’re proud to be here,” Hageman said. “If they’re living their life, we have to keep living too, which is daunting. … But we just adapt, we just keep moving forward every day, as all people do.”

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Find her on Instagram and Twitter, or send her an email at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

Hundreds of immigrants, refugees await English education as Literacy Green Bay weathers federal cuts is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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A few months ago, we got an email from a reader seeking advice from journalists covering education and job training.

The reader’s granddaughter will be off to college soon. She and her friends are all wondering how to prepare for a world where artificial intelligence threatens to gobble up so many white-collar jobs. 

“Can we predict where the lasting jobs will be?” the reader asked.

The truth: We really didn’t know the answer. But we’re gonna get to the bottom of that and more, by reporting on how AI is changing the job search and the advice colleges give students as they plan their careers.

That’s where you come in. If you’re a student — or know one — help us out by filling out this short form or sharing it. The answers will help us ask better questions and address the real concerns students have.

As AI rapidly changes, well, seemingly everything around us, we’re learning right alongside you. Email me with more questions, as always: mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

Help us report on what AI means for career choices is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Social media videos started popping up earlier this year with users complaining about the cost of living in Green Bay, other cities in Wisconsin and other battleground states. 
• The people posting the videos make claims that run the gamut – some factual, some misleading and some totally false. 
• Wisconsin Watch and Sunlight Research Desk looked into the trend, but couldn’t determine who – if anyone – was paying the creators to make the videos. 
• If the videos were paid for, creators not disclosing that paid relationship could be in violation of federal prohibitions on deceptive advertising, one political advertising expert said. 
• Republicans and Democrats are increasingly paying for user-generated content, raising questions about the future of election campaigning in the digital age.

In May, TikTok user @lifewithjacob1 uploaded a 20-second video blasting Green Bay’s rent prices. 

“Why is rent in Wisconsin so expensive right now?” he said. “I’m on a website looking for a new spot. I can’t find anything under $4,000 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.” 

He went on to post more than 100 more, bemoaning skyrocketing prices for gas, housing and even dinner at Culver’s. Almost every video on the account, which was created in May, focused on how expensive life is in Green Bay. 

The problem? Many of the videos seem to be pure fiction. 

It’s not just that the average rent in Green Bay is a quarter of what he claims, according to July figures from Zillow. It’s also that his name isn’t Jacob, and it’s unclear if he’s ever lived in Wisconsin. 

Through a reverse image search, Wisconsin Watch and Muckrock’s Sunlight Research Desk identified the man in the videos as Connor Printz, a self-described “user-generated content creator” who gets paid by brands to make social media posts that don’t look like ads. It’s a burgeoning industry, and one that many Americans may never have heard of — though they’ve likely seen these kinds of posts. 

This model is spreading nationwide as dark money groups try to sway voters stealthily by hiring social media creators to push their agendas. Wisconsin Watch and Sunlight Research Desk identified more than a dozen users publishing near-identical messaging about the cost of living in battleground states — claims that oscillate between factual, misleading and downright false. 

The videos targeting Wisconsin don’t mention specific political parties or candidates, but they’re strikingly similar to videos where creators in other states supported or knocked certain candidates — part of what MS NOW called a “secret paid influencer campaign.” 

It’s unclear who, if anyone, is funding the videos about Green Bay and Wisconsin, or what the goal is. Printz declined to answer questions, and the videos and biography on his account have since been deleted, a phenomenon common with short-term social media campaigns.  

The videos themselves do not indicate whether they were paid for. If they were, one political advertising expert said, creators not disclosing that paid relationship could violate federal prohibitions on deceptive advertising. The trend raises questions about the future of political campaigning and the reforms needed to protect elections in the modern age.

Meanwhile, though many of the statistics the creators shared are false — Green Bay is often hailed as a particularly affordable city — the posts speak to a question increasingly on Americans’ minds, one that could prove pivotal in upcoming elections: Why is everything so expensive?

Making money on misinformation?

To try to understand who is behind the Green Bay videos, Wisconsin Watch and Sunlight Research Desk researched creators using public records databases, scoured campaign finance records, conducted reverse image searches, interviewed elected officials representing the city and compiled more than 5,000 videos.

Among the findings: The person shaking his head disapprovingly over the high cost of living in northeast Wisconsin is a former college basketball player turned social media creator whose LinkedIn profile says he’s based in Los Angeles. 

While @lifewithjacob1’s TikTok bio said he was “Green Bay born and raised,” his Claremont McKenna College basketball webpage says he’s from Waterbury, Connecticut, and attended high school in Connecticut and Massachusetts. 

Printz claimed to live in Green Bay and sometimes referred to moving from California to Wisconsin in TikTok videos posted under the @lifewithjacob1 account. Wisconsin Watch and Sunlight Research Desk found no evidence he has ever lived in Wisconsin.

Today, according to his LinkedIn, Printz works as a user-generated content creator through SideShift, a platform where organizations hire content creators. His account states he manages between six and 10 social media accounts at a time, “completing campaigns for brands.” SideShift did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s questions. 

According to the American Marketing Association, user-generated content is “sponsored content that looks and feels like genuine customer posts.” While the person on screen has likely received payment or free products, the videos are meant to feel like they’re ranting or raving about something of their own accord. It’s typically a cheaper way to advertise than making sponsorship deals with high-profile influencers or celebrities. 

When those posts endorse or recommend brands, products or services, federal law and platform policies require they be labeled as ads or sponsored content. TikTok did not respond when Wisconsin Watch asked if its policies require such disclosures for videos like Printz’s.

Political organizations are increasingly buying this form of content, eager to leverage its authentic — and often undetectable —  feel. 

Both political parties are hiring influencers to build online enthusiasm for their candidates. Democrats have poured tens of millions of dollars into these secret influencer campaigns since their 2024 election defeat, according to a New York Times report. The influencer firm Creator Grid, which has received funds from the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, boasts connecting “Republican candidates with the internet’s most powerful conservative influencers,” the Times reported.  This election cycle, MS NOW reported that influencers received payment to post favorable content about politicians in California and Michigan and attack a candidate in Illinois.

Wisconsin Watch and Sunlight Research Desk found similar videos about the cost of living in cities across the country: La Crosse. Milwaukee. Madison. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Charlotte, North Carolina. Atlanta, Georgia. Many of the users creating these videos have similar usernames, including @rantswithsaum, @rantswithcarlyy or @rants.with.k. Wisconsin Watch contacted several of the users behind the accounts but none responded.

It’s unclear who paid for the videos Wisconsin Watch identified. The Sunlight Research team searched spending records for registered political action committees and political candidates in key swing states but found no evidence of payments to the influencers or influencer platforms tied to these videos. And while Wisconsinites will elect a new governor in November, spokespeople for candidates David Crowley and Tom Tiffany both said they had not paid for or even seen the videos in question. 

What is clear is that this type of political content is in demand: Wisconsin Watch found a listing on SideShift from “Project Bullhorn” offering creators $1,500 monthly to “speak on the rising crisis of affordability in the United States ahead of the 2026 midterms.” Project Bullhorn is one of several influencer efforts the New York Times reports Democratic donors are funding. A leader of the initiative declined to answer questions from Wisconsin Watch on the record. 

‘More expensive than NYC’

From May through July, Printz posted roughly two videos a day about Green Bay’s cost of living.

In May, he claimed gas prices in Green Bay soared to almost $7 a gallon. While the Iran war has driven fuel prices up, prices at local pumps peaked this spring around $4.50 a gallon. 

“Is Green Bay, Wisconsin, actually more expensive than New York City?” Printz asked in a June video, recounting the experience of a friend who purportedly moved from the Big Apple to Packerland, anticipating a lower cost of living. 

“Guess what? It was just as expensive. Rent prices were crazy. Gas was crazy. Culver’s is so expensive, more than almost every restaurant in New York City,” Printz said.

In another video, he said tuition at Wisconsin colleges now cost $70,000 annually. 

“Just makes you question if it’s worth it now,” reads text on the video of Printz repeatedly shaking his head. According to CollegeBoard data, Wisconsin’s public universities charged in-state students $10,600 on average in 2025.

@wisconsinwatch

💵$4k rent? $7 gas? More expensive than NYC? A deluge of TikTok and Instagram videos are making outlandish claims about Wisconsin’s cost of living. In some cases, the people behind them – self-described “user-generated content creators” — are using fake names or don’t even appear to live in Wisconsin. The videos seem to be part of a growing trend of paying influencers to post on political topics, often without any disclosures. Here’s why it matters. Read more at the link in our bio.

♬ original sound – Wisconsin Watch

In addition to the overblown numbers, locals might spot other faux pas. In one video, Printz asks for feedback from his “fellow Wisconsiners,” a term that would make any self-respecting Wisconsinite cringe. 

Green Bay resident Allyson Brunette started seeing the videos pop up in her TikTok feed around May. The inaccuracies were obvious, she said, especially the part about $4,000 rent. 

What was less obvious was where all these videos came from. She clicked on the creators’ profiles and discovered that not only did they often follow each other, but some of the users following them were making parallel videos elsewhere. 

“It seemed that there was almost this network of these avatars with similar usernames and almost identical content in different cities and states across the U.S.,” said Brunette, who wrote to Wisconsin Watch in May about her suspicions. 

“I was like, am I nuts? I think this is a coordinated effort,” Brunette said in a July interview. “What immediately struck my mind, as someone who’s 38 and lived through the Facebook misinformation of the last few elections, was: Is this gearing up to shift political (opinions) before the gubernatorial election?”

Brunette isn’t the only TikTok user raising the alarm about these types of claims. On many of Printz’s videos, commenters called out misinformation and offered the facts. 

“Obvious rage bait,” wrote one user in response to the claim that Green Bay is more expensive than New York City.

“Literally nothing you said is true,” wrote another.

Is it legal?

Experts say this novel influence model seems to test the limits of laws governing campaign finance and advertising. 

Christopher Terry is an associate professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Minnesota who studies political advertising. He told Wisconsin Watch these types of videos could potentially violate state and federal law, even if they don’t mention candidates, parties, elections or products.  

Paid posts are a form of commercial speech, which is not subject to the same First Amendment protections as standard political speech, Terry said. If creators don’t disclose that they were paid to create posts, that could violate the Federal Trade Commission prohibition on deceptive practices, Terry said, though he noted the agency has not enforced that policy against social media influencers to date.

“It has warned a bunch of them. It has threatened a ton of them, but it has not actually brought an enforcement action against any of them,” Terry said.

Any posts that mislead voters about candidates or referendums could also potentially violate a Wisconsin statute barring “false representation … intended to affect voting in an election,” Terry said. 

“Any chucklehead in any northern Wisconsin bar will give you an opinion on a political thing … That’s fine,” Terry said. “If he’s paid to think that and paid to sit in the bar and talk to people about it, that’s something else, right?” 

Meanwhile, democracy advocates have called on the Federal Election Commission to clarify laws to explicitly require that influencers post disclaimers indicating who paid for their political content.

Prices, misinformation on the rise

While many of these videos are riddled with false information, they channel popular frustrations over real spikes in prices.

“Gas is not $7 a gallon in Green Bay, and average rent is not $4,000. But they’re both more expensive than they used to be … It’s simply true that people are anxious and concerned about the cost of living,” said state Sen. Jamie Wall, D-Green Bay. “And I hear that from people across the political spectrum.”

Across the country, consumers have been sour on the economy for years, said Joanne Hsu, who oversees the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers. The monthly consumer sentiment survey, first conducted in 1946, asks Americans how they feel about the economy and where it’s headed. 

The answer in recent months: still not good. When survey workers asked Americans in June about their personal finances, 56% brought up high prices without being prompted. 

In Green Bay, where the average home value is about $290,000, the cost of living remains relatively low. But local residents are feeling the strain of rising prices too, state Rep. Amaad Rivera-Wagner, D-Green Bay, said.

Still, he fears the misinformation could stifle Green Bay’s future. 

“That’s one of the most frustrating things about social media is that we are now fighting an army of misinformation, sometimes by innocent bystanders, but sometimes by bad actors,” Rivera-Wagner said.

“This is where that confusion can actually cost or have real impact,” he said. “There might be people in and around our community or businesses thinking about moving or working in our community, and they’re seeing a larger narrative that is not only inaccurate, but doesn’t actually talk about how much work we’ve done to make Green Bay still one of the most affordable places to live in the state or the country.”

Meanwhile, rising costs could shape the outcome of midterm elections across the country this fall. American adults ranked inflation and the high cost of living as the most important issue in every Marquette University Law School Poll national survey this year. President Donald Trump has drawn criticism for largely dismissing concerns about high prices.

“It doesn’t feel good to be told the economy is doing great when you feel like you’re stretching to make ends meet,” Hsu said. 

Anna Massoglia, Michael Nolan, Jason Dearen and MuckRock’s Sunlight Research Desk provided research and data analysis for this story.

$4K rent? $7 gas? Inside the internet campaign insisting Green Bay is ‘more expensive than NYC’ is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 7 minutes

This story is part of a collaboration between Wisconsin Watch and Door County Knock, exploring the factors that make pet ownership in Door County a pricey challenge. Read Knock’s story here. 

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Rural residents, like those in Door County, bear the brunt of the veterinarian shortage, which leaves local clinics overbooked and unable to offer emergency services. 
• The nearest emergency veterinarian is in Appleton, though one will soon open in Bellevue. 
• The demand has placed increasing pressure on veterinary professionals, with burnout a common problem and high suicide rates among veterinarians. 
• UW-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine is the only training program for vets in the state. It only accepts 100 students annually due to a lack of physical space. 
• UW officials hope to renovate the vet school’s facilities to expand the class size.

Right after Wisconsin’s historic snowstorm in March, Jessica Chase’s dog started seizing on the floor of her Sturgeon Bay home. In five-minute intervals, the episodes grabbed control of Capri, a shepherd, husky and Rottweiler mix.

Panicked, Chase called the nearest emergency veterinary hospital: BluePearl in Appleton. The 24-hour vet is roughly a 90-minute drive for Chase on a good day — and likely much more that day, given more than 2 feet of snow blanketing the streets. 

Chase couldn’t fathom driving that far while her dog lay seizing in the back seat. She also didn’t know if she’d survive that long. Then, staff warned she could be waiting several more hours upon arrival, as the hospital was at full capacity. 

Less than 12 hours after her first seizure, Capri died on the kitchen floor. 

“It was the most mortifying experience ever,” Chase said. “It’s basically like my baby.”

For Door County pet owners like Chase, options are slim when crisis hits. The nearest emergency veterinarian is between one and three hours away, depending on how far north on the peninsula they reside. 

The dearth of options means residents must forgo care or make nail-biting drives with sick pets. Sometimes they arrive too late. 

Thanks to veterinarian shortages and Wisconsin’s limited capacity for training new vets, the problem is getting worse. And it’s not just an issue in emergencies: Many rural pet owners must also look far or wait long for routine vet care. 

There’s no easy solution. Existing Door County vet clinics are too overwhelmed to offer emergency services, and there are likely not enough doctors or patients to justify opening an ER facility. 

“I feel like if we had a clinic near us, even a half-hour away, it would have been much more reasonable to have someone look at her, than just having to sit there with our dog dying and there’s nothing we can do,” Chase said. “There was nobody to really call and talk to. Nobody walked us through it. No one gave us advice.”

Overwhelming demand

Peninsula Veterinary Hospital in Sturgeon Bay receives at least five calls a day from people who need emergency care. Staff work patients into the schedule if they can. But often, they’re not equipped to treat the issues, lacking the proper tools or staff.

“It’s like going to your family doctor with a broken leg,” said Amy Hults, a certified veterinary technician at the clinic. 

It was easier for residents to get by when BluePearl operated a facility in Green Bay, about 35 miles closer than Appleton. But the facility closed in early 2025. The company never offered a reason why. 

Nowadays, residents regularly complain about the issue to one another and on social media. The discourse gets louder in the summer months, when an influx of vacationers arrive, many unaware of the limited care options.

The chorus of complaints just may not be large enough. Research has shown that it takes a population of 100,000 people to have enough clients to sustain a round-the-clock facility, Door County vet Dr. Sherry Billett said. Door County is home to 30,000 year-round residents and welcomes more than 2.5 million visitors annually.

Other barriers stand in the way: Specialized equipment is pricey. The facility would need enough doctors and support staff to cover the clock — a notoriously difficult thing to find. 

Peninsula Veterinary Hospital has been trying to find a new vet for “a long time,” to no avail, Hults said. With high housing costs serving as a barrier — the average home value is nearly $440,000 according to Zillow — it’s challenging to get new hires to move to the county.

“Because of the overwhelming demand, we need to schedule appointments several weeks in advance, and sometimes even months in advance,” Billett said. “We hear from callers on a regular basis that other clinics are not taking any new patients, which adds to our case load.” 

They’ve gotten creative to fit in more patients, including overlapping bookings and having owners drop their pets off for the day, so they can work them in between appointments.

Burnout is a constant battle, Billett said. It’s stressful to juggle treating different species daily and handle the emotions of animals’ caretakers, she said. Suicide rates among veterinarians are high.

“That said, it is also an incredibly emotionally and psychologically rewarding profession for the right people,” Billett said.

Where are the vets?

So where are the right people?

There’s only one training program in the state: the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine, where roughly 2,500 students vie for 100 open seats yearly. About half of the graduates will stay and practice in Wisconsin. 

The school isn’t churning out enough graduates to make a serious dent in the state’s shortage.  And its lecture halls and laboratories don’t have enough physical space to expand enrollment.

“We are capped out at the number of students we can admit because … the facilities just literally cannot fit any additional folks,” said Dr. Jonathan Levine, dean of the vet school.

“More and more people want to do this career, which is wonderful. It’s a terrific career,” he said. “The challenge is having enough spots to accommodate qualified, excellent applicants.”

To someday change that, UW-Madison is beginning to examine how it can renovate buildings and “expand our class size to meet the needs of Wisconsin and the region,” Levine said. 

Student debt also plays a role in where veterinarians choose to practice, said Dr. Jen Quammen, president of the American Veterinary Medical Association. AVMA data shows veterinarians’ average student debt upon graduation climbed to nearly $175,000 in 2025.

“Food-animal, rural and public health careers typically pay less than companion-animal practice in metro areas, so many graduates find themselves balancing where they feel called to practice with where they can realistically afford to practice,” Quammen said. 

Not all of these graduates work in emergency facilities or pet clinics. There’s demand for vets in many fields, Levine said, including research, at drug development corporations or in pathology. 

“It’s all those things that have sort of combined over the last decade to drive very high demand, and the supply of veterinarians is limited,” Levine said. “In rural communities it’s been particularly challenging, and that is not a new story. It’s … a decades-old story.” 

Solutions elusive

JoAnne Rosenfeld believes her Boston terrier, Butch, would still be alive if Door County had an emergency vet. 

In April, Butch began seizing while he slept, spinning his body in “jerky spurts” and yelping in pain. Rosenfeld and her son scooped up Butch, limp and struggling to breathe, and brought him to the car for the 90-minute haul to Appleton. 

Butch, almost 4 years old, died 18 miles from the destination. Rosenfeld pressed on, hoping CPR could save him, to no avail. 

“Heartbroken, despondent, anguished, heartsick and sad beyond belief,” Rosenfeld wrote in a letter with other local advocates, asking that county leaders and vets come together to find a solution. 

She offered one: Door County vets rotating weekends to be on-call for emergencies. 

“If there are 10 vets willing to help, their duties would be just once every 10 weeks, about five times a year, only nights and weekends, which would not interfere with daily activities,” she wrote.

Local clinic workers say such an arrangement isn’t realistic, as they’re already fighting burnout. 

“There is no way that a doctor or nurse could work their full 40- to 50-hour workweek and still be capable and fresh for after-hours or weekend emergencies,” Billett said. “This would add to the stress and the burnout that it is already a constant battle.”

While emergency care inside county limits seems unfeasible, closer help could soon be on the way. National chain Veterinary Emergency Group (VEG) will soon open a new 24-hour emergency location in Bellevue, about 40 miles closer than BluePearl in Appleton. Its website says the Brown County location is “coming soon,” and a ribbon-cutting will be hosted on Aug. 27. 

VEG’s site offers no contact information for the new branch. The company did not respond to a request for comment. 

But closer care would be a welcome relief for Sister Bay resident Nancy Treleven, who has driven a six-hour round trip to get care for her French bulldog, Winston. 

“It’s just scary when you’re in the car with a pet that’s not well,” Treleven said. “I’m focused on driving, but I’m completely stressed because I’m worrying about how my dog is doing, and if I’m gonna get there in time, and what happens if everything’s not OK, and I can’t make it back home tonight. Where am I staying? What am I doing?” 

Nationally, legislation addressing the problem is in the works. AVMA is advocating for Congress to pass the Rural Veterinary Workforce Act, which would offer $120,000 in student loan relief to veterinarians who commit to three years of service in rural shortage areas. 

Editor’s note: A caption in a previous version of this story misspelled the name of Brienna Derbique.

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Find her on Instagram and Twitter, or send her an email at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

Vet shortage overwhelms clinics, leaves owners to drive hours for emergency care is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Click here to read highlights from the story

• Labor and employment attorney Victor Forberger offered several tips for people who are filing for unemployment during a recent webinar.
• He advised people to know the difference between an initial claim and a weekly certification; to know that mistakes can be used against you; to make sure you’re searching for work; to document and retain records of your work search actions; to report all job offers; and to know if the reason you left your job is valid.

In Wisconsin, filing for state assistance after becoming unemployed can be an odyssey. 

A long list of mistakes can derail your claim, jeopardizing your benefits and even opening you up to legal trouble. 

Wisconsin Watch attended the State Bar of Wisconsin‘s unemployment filing seminar, where labor and employment attorney Victor Forberger presented on the mechanics of the winding filing process. 

We used that information to compile this list of tips and common mistakes to avoid when filing your unemployment claim. Here are some things to know. 

Know the difference

To be paid unemployment benefits, you must file two main things:

1. File an initial claim, where you report that you separated from a job.
2. File a weekly “certification,” where you must continue to prove you meet each of the state’s criteria for benefits. 

Department of Workforce Development staff and judges use the word “claim” interchangeably while referring to each of these processes, Forberger said. Knowing the difference can help lessen mistakes. 

Know that mistakes can be used against you

The online system will repeatedly ask if all of the information you’re entering is truthful, as a method of protecting against fraud.

Thus, any mistake you make is assumed to be purposeful, unless you can point to a specific reason that might have caused the mistake, such as a disability, that shows you’re not at fault. That’s hard to do. 

Mistakes can — and often do — lead people to be charged with fraud, enabling the state to claw back unemployment benefits and charge penalty fees. 

Dates are tricky. Prepare accordingly

When you file your initial claim, you’ll be asked to select the first week you want to begin receiving benefits. That date may have nothing to do with when you actually lost your job. 

“You may have suffered a job loss, and the employer gave your vacation pay that you had accrued for 20 years, and so you’re being paid now for six weeks,” Forberger said. “You don’t file your unemployment claim on the week that the job loss ended. Start your unemployment claim when the vacation pay has run out.”

People often try to start the initial claims in the past, on the date that they lost their job. 

You are supposed to file your initial claim within seven days of the week you want to start receiving benefits. If it’s outside of that time frame, the state considers it a “late claim,” which is very difficult to prove and accepted under only what the state deems “exceptional circumstances.” 

Reporting the wrong date could disqualify you and derail the process of receiving benefits. 

Make sure you’re searching for work

The main way people disqualify themselves, Forberger said, is by not properly showing the state you are looking for new work. 

To receive unemployment benefits in Wisconsin, typically you must prove you’re seeking a new job by doing things like giving a resume to a hiring employer, interviewing for a job or meeting with a career counselor. 

You must conduct four new work search actions every week and upload the proof during the weekly certification process.

Forberger recommends doing five actions, to be safe, in the event that one action is disqualified.

Falsely reporting actions could be considered fraud, disqualifying your claim and opening you up to legal penalties.

Hang onto your documents

You should keep all of the documented proof of your work searches handy for one year.

The state randomly audits people’s work searches for accuracy, so you could be asked to submit proof of your work search actions for any particular week. Any issues could mean having to repay your benefits for that week.

Report all job offers

During the weekly certification process, you will be asked if you have turned down a “bona fide job offer” that week, meaning a legitimate job offer, complete with a pay rate and list of duties. 

“It can’t just be like, ‘Hey, come by tomorrow, I got a job for you,’” Forberger said. “It’s got to be like, ‘You’re going to get hired at $15 an hour to stock shelves at my department store, and your schedule is going to be in the evenings, part time.”

During the first six weeks of your job search on unemployment, you are allowed to turn down what the state deems suitable work without threatening your benefits if the offer involves lower skills or significantly lower pay than before. 

After those six weeks, you have to take any “bona fide” offer that comes your way, Forberger said. You must also report all of the offers that you’ve turned down, even if they weren’t suitable work. Failing to do these things could disqualify you from unemployment benefits. 

Don’t file your weekly certifications on Sunday

People often file their weekly certifications on Sundays thinking they’re being proactive by doing it early. But there’s no phone support available to call for help on Sundays. 

“There’s no need to rush because you’re going to get paid,” Forberger said. “Getting it one or two days earlier is not going to make all that much of a difference.”

Know if your reason for leaving your job is valid

When filing for unemployment, you will be asked to report why you separated from all of the jobs you’ve held within the last 18 months.

The onus is on you to understand if your reason for leaving a job is one Wisconsin considers “disqualifying,” and report it accordingly. Mistakes you make here will be treated as intentional.

Among the reasons that will disqualify you from receiving unemployment benefits:

• Left your job without good cause.
• You were fired for misconduct or substantial fault.
• You refused work without good cause.
• You work a job considered “excluded.” Learn more here.  

Among the reasons that are accepted:

• Were laid off or your work hours were reduced because your employer did not have enough work for you.
• Left your last job and can show it was for a good cause. Learn more about what is defined as “good cause” here. 

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Find her on Instagram and Twitter, or send her an email at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

Filing for unemployment in Wisconsin is tricky. Keep these tips in mind. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• The Pulaski Community School District summer school program attracts more than 2,500 kids – 68% of the district’s enrollment. 
• The free program has become a lifeline for parents at a time when affordable child care can be hard to find. 
• Students can sign up for fun classes such as cooking and swimming lessons. Those who need academic support get it. 
• One of the biggest challenges officials ran into initially was – ironically – child care for educators. Now there’s “a babysitting room” where fellow teachers and students interested in early childhood education take care of a handful of babies.

On a Thursday in early July, more than 1,000 children flooded the halls of Pulaski Community Middle School. Heaps of backpacks were piled in corners of classrooms and hallways. Bikes crowded the racks outside. At lunchtime, lines of children snaked around the building as they waited for hamburgers. 

Summer school: a phrase usually wielded as a threat to keep students on task in the classroom.

Not in Pulaski. 

For six weeks each summer, the northeast Wisconsin village’s middle school transforms into the “place to be,” instead of a punishment.

More than 2,600 kids — 68% of the school district’s enrollment — sign up for summer classes ranging from knitting and cooking to swimming lessons and science experiments. Students who need extra academic help get it, but the focus is on exploring new interests, spending less time on screens and nurturing kids’ creative sides in a way classwork doesn’t always encourage.

At a time when affordable child care can be hard to find, the free program has become a lifeline for the community. Signing up for classes is as competitive as queuing to buy Bruno Mars tickets, staff said — the most popular classes fill up in minutes. 

“You get to see a lot of kids from other schools that you don’t get to see normally,” sixth grader Xiomara Lloyd said as she strung beads to add to the stack of bracelets on her wrist, each adorned with her nickname, “Xio.” “I love it.”

The classes help students build a positive association with school, explore new hobbies, get offline and into the real world — and, of course, learn. 

“There’s a lot of anxiety and different things as soon as they get close to those (school) doors because now they’re asked to do a lot of things that are difficult for them to do,” said Pulaski Area Community Education Director Mark Heck, who leads the summer school. “But when we can have them come in and have great success and really enjoy it, that’s a win.” 

‘A little different type of learning’

Walking through the halls is like stepping between different worlds. 

In one classroom, students dressed in Halloween costumes have a dance party. In another, students take turns using American Sign Language to describe emotions. Upstairs, students cook pizza from scratch in a home economics classroom. And in the gymnasium, shrieks and shouts echo as kids play an intense game of dodgeball.  

But the chaos is organized — every classroom has at least two adults, and kids wear a badge printed with their name and their schedule, so adults know where they belong if they get lost. 

“Summer school is stuff that you learn new, like swimming floats, or you learn how to make diamond art, or even make hearts made out of clay … Summer school lets you have fun in the summer, if you don’t know what to do at your house,” said elementary student Ava Lentz. 

And it’s not all fun and games. Those behind in classes or on tests take reading and math classes designed to catch them up. Several teachers also host tutoring sessions.

But generally, the classes take a more creative approach. That includes a science class where kids gleefully partake in a series of science experiments — on that Thursday, they combined soda and Pop Rocks and watched the fizzy reaction. 

“It’s really great learning, but it might not be exactly what they’re learning during the school year, where (educators are) worried about standards, and worried about the tests that they’re going to be getting kids ready for, and things like that,” Heck said.

“All of those things are very important, but during the summertime we can do a little different type of learning.”

That philosophy has guided the program for two decades.

When Pulaski leaders launched the summer school 22 years ago, it was a small program consisting of one or two classes at several schools because the state would only fund a few hours a day. 

Busy parents begged for a full-day program. Not long after Pulaski schools started offering afternoon programming at a cost, the state’s rules changed. Now, schools can get funding for eligible programs all day, all summer long. So Heck dreamed of something bigger.

“I just had this idea in my head that was going, ‘I think we could do something a lot better than this.’ … I want to make a program where your kids say, ‘No, I want to go to summer school,’” he said.

Nowadays, they do. 

Kids beg to sign up to be where their friends are. About 68% of the district’s 3,800 students will enroll in at least one summer school course. Signing up for classes is “an Olympic sport,” staff say. Parents take off work to refresh the computer. They post to Facebook the night before registration, wishing each other luck. The best classes fill up in minutes. 

It takes a village

Keeping such a behemoth summer school running smoothly takes a village. But in the tight-knit community, it works. 

The district employs roughly 130 teachers, 25 classroom aides, various high school and college students and other community members to keep over 2,500 students busy. 

“When we hire our teachers … The first thing I say is, if you weren’t here right now, what would you be doing?” Heck said. 

Those answers often become classes. For example: A local farmer teaches kids about horses, even bringing in equestrians as guest speakers and taking kids to visit the farm animals. Two food service workers teach students how to cook. A hobby fisherman took students to different ponds in the area during a previously offered course. 

Running such a major operation has also brought challenges. It was tough getting all of the departments — transportation, food, academics — on board. But that’s much easier to do in a small district like Pulaski, Heck said. 

Ironically, another major challenge: child care. 

Many educators have young children who are too young to attend summer school but still need care during the workday. Without viable child care, they couldn’t commit to working in the warmer months. 

The district’s solution: One classroom is transformed into a “babysitting room,” where fellow teachers and aspiring early childhood educators change diapers, make bottles and keep a handful of babies entertained. 

For aspiring educators like Cori Adelman, who studies early childhood education at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, the room offers hands-on experience working with young children. 

The program has become a workforce pipeline, too. Heck estimates about 15 young adults who first worked summer school have since returned as full-time educators either in Pulaski or in neighboring districts.

‘A lifesaver’

Affordable child care has become increasingly difficult to find, and securing spots in summer camps is notoriously competitive. For that reason, the free summer school that turns away no one has become a lifeline for local families.

Parent and Pulaski Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Stacey Von Busch said her kids have participated in the camp for years, calling its affordability a “lifesaver.” 

“To have something like this in our community, where we don’t have to drive 30 minutes to get our kids to (other camps), is huge,” she said. 

The district provides bus transportation for students who need it, and thanks to a federal grant, children can eat breakfast and lunch at school. 

While by law the school must be tuition-free, the district may charge modest fees for supplies, such as beads for making bracelets or yarn for knitting and crocheting. Course fees range between $0 and $40 for each two-week term. 

The school is funded by the state — Wisconsin schools can receive funding for summer school classes that meet certain academic requirements. Rather than paying schools a flat amount for each student, the state bases funding on the total instructional time students attend. Therefore, Heck is on a mission to keep enrollment high: More students involved equals more funding.

That includes everyone. Parents of children with disabilities often struggle more to find summer schools and camps that serve them, Heck said. He didn’t want that to be the case in Pulaski. 

Many of the district’s special education employees staff a classroom dedicated to children with disabilities. That includes those who require federally mandated “extended school year instruction,” an individualized academic program meant to stop students from regressing over break. 

“I look forward to this every year,” said special education teacher Tessa Badtke. “You just get to know them in such a different way because there’s not this academic pressure like at school, so you can just build these relationships.” 

And then, Badtke said, students have a better school year. Heck agreed. 

“What’s the win out of it for us? We got our kids to walk through the school doors and actually not be angry and upset when they came in,” Heck said. “They’re coming in and they’re happy. Our hope is maybe next year, when they come back in the fall, they’re coming in and they’re saying, ‘I’ll give it a chance.’”

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Find her on Instagram and Twitter, or send her an email at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

This story was updated to correct the number of students who attend summer school. Wisconsin Watch regrets the error.

A Wisconsin school district made summer school fun. Now 2,600 kids show up. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• More than 108,000 Wisconsinites are in default on student loans, according to federal data analyzed by the Associated Press and shared with Wisconsin Watch. 
• The number of borrowers in default surged nationwide since 2024, when pandemic relief measures ended. 
• Advocates expect it to worsen, with borrowers facing higher monthly payments and longer repayment terms after the Trump administration ended existing relief options.
• Wisconsin student loan borrowers who attend for-profit colleges are twice as likely to be 90 days behind on payments compared to peers at public and nonprofit private colleges, AP data shows.

The number of Wisconsinites many months behind on student loan bills has risen by nearly 50% since last fall. 

That’s according to federal data analyzed by the Associated Press, which found that more than 108,000 people in Wisconsin haven’t made payments on their loans in more than 360 days.

Across the country, the number of students in student loan default has surged by millions since a four-year pandemic reprieve ended in 2024, and advocates say it’s poised to worsen as President Donald Trump’s administration has ended existing relief options. 

Borrowers are placed in default after missing payments for nine months. The status triggers a raft of devastating consequences. The entire balance becomes due at once, and the loan is sent to collections, crashing the borrower’s credit score. That can make it harder to borrow, rent or even find work.  

Around 34,000 Wisconsinites entered student loan default since September 2025, the AP found. Of the roughly 709,100 people in Wisconsin who hold student loans, one in seven is currently in default.

Here’s how we got here: As a pandemic relief measure, the federal government allowed borrowers to suspend student loan payments until 2023, and President Joe Biden’s administration then provided a one-year grace period. That ended in fall 2024, allowing loans to enter into default after nine months of missed payments. 

A surge in defaults followed, and today around 9.5 million borrowers nationwide — over 1 in 5 — are in default, including those whose loans were well past due before the pandemic, according to the AP analysis. The previous record for borrowers in default had been 8 million in December 2019.

Meanwhile, many borrowers are facing much higher monthly payments since the Trump administration ended the SAVE repayment plan, which offered more flexibility and lower payments than any other. In its absence, borrowers will see longer repayment terms and “unpredictable payment spikes,” wrote Michele Zampini, associate vice president of federal policy and advocacy at the Institute for College Access and Success, in a February blog post. 

“I am seeing despair and outrage and despondency and just a very wide mix of pretty extreme emotions, the likes of which I have not seen before,” Alan Collinge, the founder of grassroots advocacy group Student Loan Justice, told the AP. 

The federal government can garnish wages and Social Security payments from borrowers in default, but the Trump administration in January walked back plans to begin collections on their loans. A Moody’s Analytics report this spring said garnishments are likely to begin within the next year, warning of “an additional headwind in an increasingly fragile economy.” 

Governments and colleges may also impose additional penalties on borrowers in default, including restricting access to further financial aid, withholding transcripts and suspending professional licenses and driver’s licenses. 

“These measures are not only punitive, they’re also self-defeating: by undermining someone’s ability to cover basic expenses, return to school to finish a degree, keep their job, or even drive a car, the default system makes it harder for someone who is already struggling to secure their financial footing,” Zampini wrote in 2025. 

For-profit colleges, lower repayment rates

Students who attend Wisconsin’s for-profit colleges are far less likely to satisfy their loan payments than their peers at the state’s public and nonprofit private colleges, the AP data shows. 

AP reporters analyzed data from the Office of Federal Student Aid on students whose loan payments first came due between January 2020 and May 2025, typically because they either graduated or left school. The analysis does not include students at schools with fewer than 100 borrowers. 

The data shows students who have attended for-profit schools in Wisconsin are twice as likely as their peers to be at least 90 days behind on payments. At Wisconsin’s public and private colleges, one in seven of these borrowers had fallen behind on payments by May of this year. At for-profit schools, the rate was more than one in four. 

Nonpayment rates were highest for students who attended for-profit cosmetology schools.

Nearly half of the 300 borrowers in the sample who attended Tricoci University of Beauty Culture’s Janesville campus were at least 90 days late. 

The Paul Mitchell beauty schools in Madison — which has since closed — and Milwaukee have 40% nonpayment rates. The nonpayment rate for the Salon Professional Academy in Kenosha is 36%, and the rate at State College of Beauty Culture is 35%.

Elinor Mittlestat, owner of State College of Beauty Culture, found the nonpayment rate surprising. She noted that many people graduate from the school without any loans. 

“It has been a strained economy, and I do understand that newly graduated students sometimes struggle to make student loan payments,” she said. 

One reason for the low repayment rate could be that cosmetology graduates tend to have relatively low incomes. On average, graduates of the Paul Mitchell school in Milwaukee, the Salon Professional Academy in Kenosha and State College of Beauty Culture make $7,000 to $12,500 less than the median Wisconsin high school graduate, according to an analysis of earnings data from Open Campus and The HEA Group.

Meanwhile, student borrowers who don’t finish school have to make loan payments too, even though they don’t have a credential to help them get a better job. Those who don’t graduate are more than twice as likely to end up in default, according to research by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

“The most important thing that you can do to be able to repay any loans you take out is to finish your program,” Carole Trone, executive director of the Wisconsin Coalition on Student Debt, told Wisconsin Watch in January. People leave school for all sorts of reasons, including family commitments and job changes. “A lot of that can be really unavoidable … but those are the borrowers that often have the most difficulty in repaying their loans.”

Around 25,000 students who recently attended Wisconsin public colleges are at least 90 days behind on their payments too, though they represent a far smaller share (13%) of those borrowers.

Students who attended Gateway Technical College have the highest nonpayment rate of the state’s public schools, with three in 10 recent students not making payments. 

Gateway communications manager Lee Colony said the college needs to use a “personal touch” to see what’s driving people to not pay their loans.

“We will reach out to those students and see if there is any help we can provide to them for repayment options,” Colony said. “Some of that outreach will also include ways to educate them on finances and how to properly borrow money to pay for college.”

By comparison, the University of Wisconsin campuses in Oshkosh, Stevens Point, Superior and Whitewater all have nonpayment rates of 10%, while UW-Madison’s rate is just 3%. At all of those schools, most students receive some form of financial aid besides loans.

Nationwide, AP’s analysis found 133 schools where more than half of recent students are at least 90 days behind on payments. Nearly all of them are for-profit schools, and more than half of them are barber or beauty schools.

This story was reported in collaboration with The Associated Press through its Localize It initiative, which provides datasets, reporting and story ideas for local newsrooms.

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Find her on Instagram and Twitter, or send her an email at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org. 

Student loan defaults surge in Wisconsin, US after federal reprieve ends is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.