Reading Time: 6 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton recently unveiled a $2.1 million expansion to its dental training program, part of $20 million set aside by the Legislature specifically to target the state’s shortage of dental workers. 

• Officials identified the shortage before the COVID-19 pandemic and explored the issue after an influx of dental workers retired during the pandemic. 

• The issue? The state’s dental training programs were at capacity with long waiting lists. 

• They took their findings to lawmakers and lobbied for funding to expand training opportunities. 

• It will be a few years before students earn their credentials and get into the workforce.

It took Allison Beining and Kaitlyn Weyenberg almost three years to get accepted into Fox Valley Technical College’s dental hygiene program. While they inched up the waiting list for one of the coveted 15 spots, they completed dental assisting training, which taught them to operate radiographic equipment and sterilize medical instruments, among other skills.

Now, as the two students prepare to graduate and begin working as hygienists, the Appleton-based college is debuting a $2.1 million expansion to oral health training — so future students won’t have to wait as long to enroll. Across the state, 13 more campuses are unveiling similar projects. 

Following a $20 million investment from the Legislature, Wisconsin’s technical colleges are trying to solve the state’s dental worker shortage by revamping their oral health programs, constructing upgraded labs and enrolling hundreds more students. 

“We know that this is a need, and this expansion allows us to serve more students in these programs than we had previously, which means more hygienists, more assistants into the community and into the workforce quicker,” FVTC Chief Academic Officer Jennifer Lanter said.

Wisconsin’s dearth of dental workers has been well documented in recent years. Forty-two of Wisconsin’s 72 counties are impacted by the scarcity, according to the Rural Health Information Hub. 

Dentists are poorly distributed across the state, with an uneven share practicing in metropolitan areas and too few in rural regions. Too few dental hygienists and assistants — largely trained by technical schools — have entered the field to replace those who have retired in recent years.

Officials at nearly every Wisconsin technical college are looking to respond by expanding their training capacity. The technical college system trains about 2,200 students in oral health professions each year, and the new state funding will allow colleges to increase enrollment by about 10%, System President Layla Merrifield said. 

An influx of students graduating and entering the workforce should make booking oral health care appointments easier, industry officials say. 

“Not only was it a workforce issue for our dentist offices, but it was starting to impact patient care — access to care — where patients weren’t able to get their cleanings and their routine work done,” said Wisconsin Dental Association Executive Director Mark Paget. “It became a health issue for us, and thankfully, the Legislature understood the problem.”

‘It always boils down to money’

Industry leaders began staring down the barrel of a dental worker shortage roughly seven years ago. Then, an influx of hygienists retired during the COVID-19 pandemic, “throwing gasoline on the fire,” Paget said.

The dental association created a task force with the state’s technical college system, the Office of Rural Health and the Workforce Development Association to discuss solutions. 

It quickly identified a major snag keeping new workers from entering the profession: The state’s eight dental hygiene training programs were all at capacity, with students stuck on waiting lists to participate. 

“We met with the technical colleges several times and said, ‘OK, what would it take to increase your class sizes?’ Because that’s obviously where the problem is. There’s just not enough capacity for the schools to teach the classes,” Paget said. “The technical college said the magic words. It’s always money, right? It always boils down to money.”

Merrifield said the steep cost of installing equipment, such as chairs and tools, was a major barrier to colleges educating more students.

In FVTC’s case, that meant some of the dental lab spaces were physically cramped, which allowed room for fewer learners and sometimes led to errors. 

“The sterilization room … it was so small,” Beining, the student, recalled. “Things would get lost, people would get frustrated.”

In 2023, the dental association’s advocacy team lobbied the Legislature for more money to increase training capacity. Lawmakers allocated $20 million in that year’s budget to expand the oral health care workforce, such as increased class sizes, new programs and investments in equipment.

The funds flowed to the technical college system, which dispersed portions to schools as grants. Fourteen out of 16 colleges received a share, Merrifield said. 

While roughly half of the colleges offer dental hygiene programs, some funding went to assistant training and creating Expanded Function Dental Auxiliary certificate programs, which give advanced training to dental assistants. FVTC used grant funds to introduce an EFDA certificate this year.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Inside Lakeshore College’s dental lab, it might be easy to forget you’re on a college campus and not inside a dentist’s office. The space is outfitted with a reception desk and waiting room, 11 sleek dental chairs and a locker room for students to dress in their scrubs.

The college, based in Cleveland, Wisconsin, used its $1.2 million in grant funds to renovate its dental lab, upgrade equipment and introduce a dental hygiene associate degree. 

Previously, Lakeshore College offered only a semester-long dental assistant certificate. Now, the college will increase to training 15 assistant students each semester and enroll 10 more in the hygiene program. 

“There’s definitely a need in this area,” said Christina McGinnis, Lakeshore’s dental program coordinator. “Often when you call the dentist, it takes a long time to get in. So having more chairs, more students can definitely help fill that void in the local community.” 

Inside a newly constructed classroom, three stations are equipped with mannequin heads with wide-open mouths. The students will practice using their suction and cleaning instruments on the dummies before they work on real people. The simulators are just one of the technology upgrades the college was able to purchase with the grant funds, and they will help students become familiar with the tools they’ll use in the industry.

“(We’re) trying to stay on top of what’s out there, for what our students are going to be seeing when they go out to the community, working as assistants or hygienists,” McGinnis said. “They know what they’re going to be exposed to here, and then they’ll also see that in the dental world.”

Almost all Lakeshore College dental assisting students have a full-time job lined up when they graduate, McGinnis said, and it’s typical for students to enter the field earning $20 per hour. The college is waiting for a dental program accreditor to approve the hygienist degree. Officials hope it will launch in the fall of 2026.

Other Wisconsin technical colleges are starting programs tailored to needs in their service areas. For example, Madison Area Technical College recently renovated its lab and added an EFDA certificate program. Northcentral Technical College in Wausau, surrounded by rural counties with severe shortages, is introducing the state’s first dental therapist training. 

“If you’re growing up as a kid on Medicaid in the Northwoods, you almost never see a dentist. It’s very, very difficult to even see a hygienist,” Merrifield said. “So the idea with that particular program is to produce these professionals — not that they’re gonna compete with dentists because they can’t do everything that a dentist can do — but they can expand that access and make it a little bit easier.”

In the meantime, the industry just has to get through the next year or two before the additional students start graduating from the programs and filling the many empty jobs, Paget said. 

“The system works exactly how the system was supposed to work,” he said. “The technical colleges, the Legislature, the governor, everybody came together to solve a problem.”

This story was updated with the correct name for Lakeshore College. Wisconsin Watch regrets the error.

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus.

Long wait for a dental appointment? Wisconsin tech colleges are working to fix that 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: 5 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• A new analysis finds that Wisconsin ranks 46th in college affordability. 

• The report, published annually by the nonprofit National College Attainment Network, focuses on each state’s “affordability gap” – the difference between the cost of public college and what students and their families can pay.

• Spokespeople for the Universities of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Technical College System say leaders at their respective institutions know students have unmet needs and are working to support them. 

• As a result of Wisconsin lawmakers spending less on higher education, some experts think tuition promise programs will be part of the solution.

Public college is less affordable in Wisconsin than in nearly every other state, according to a new analysis of 2022-23 school year data. The nonprofit National College Attainment Network, which advocates for college access, reports annually on each state’s “affordability gap” between the cost of college and what students and their families can pay. 

The analysis included 28 Wisconsin colleges, finding that all of the state’s public four-year schools and nearly 90% of the technical colleges were unaffordable.  

Just four states ranked lower than Wisconsin in the share of their colleges considered affordable: Delaware, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Rhode Island. Nationwide, nearly half (48%) of all public four-year colleges and more than a third (35%) of community or technical colleges were affordable, the report found. 

“We saw (Wisconsin) stand out as particularly unaffordable as compared to our national average and to the other states in the region,” said report author Louisa Woodhouse, a senior associate for the organization.

To estimate what students could pay at each school, Woodhouse added up the average grants, loans and work study payments they receive, as reported in a federal database. She added that to an estimate of summer wages — based on full-time work at the state minimum wage — and an “expected family contribution” using average Pell grant awards. 

Woodhouse compared those figures with each school’s published cost of attendance. That included tuition, fees and estimated costs of items like housing, food, books and transportation. She added a flat $300 for emergency expenses. 

The report considers a college affordable if attendance and emergency expenses totaled less than income and aid.

The study included 13 Wisconsin public colleges or universities that grant bachelor’s degrees, as well as 15 of the state’s 16 technical colleges. It excluded Madison College, which belongs to the technical college system but is classified as a four-year school in federal data.

None of the four-year schools and just two technical colleges were affordable, Woodhouse found.

Wisconsin technical college students face an average affordability gap of $1,336, nearly triple the $486 national average, Woodhouse calculated. 

Students at Wisconsin’s four-year schools experienced a $3,549 gap, more than twice the national average of $1,555. 

Calling affordability and accessibility “cornerstones of our mission,” Universities of Wisconsin spokesperson Ethan Schuh noted that the system charges the lowest average tuition rates in the Upper Midwest. 

“We recognize there can be affordability gaps,” Schuh said in an email, adding that the report’s “novel datasets and methodologies” might “unintentionally disadvantage universities with low tuition and limited aid,” like those in the UW system.

Schuh attributed cost issues raised in the report to broader national trends, which “underscore the need for continued investment in financial aid and student support.” 

“While we are not immune to these challenges, we are actively working to address them,” Schuh said. 

Wisconsin Technical College System spokesperson Katy Pettersen said the report “raises important concerns about affordability.” But she questioned whether the study’s methodology accurately evaluated the state’s tech colleges, where students often attend school part time while working full time. Many earn above minimum wage in Wisconsin’s competitive labor market, Pettersen said. 

Meanwhile, Pettersen said, Wisconsin’s technical colleges work differently than counterparts in other states, making them hard to compare. Wisconsin’s tech colleges emphasize hands-on education in technology-intensive labs, while many community colleges elsewhere prioritize lower-cost classroom education, Pettersen said. 

“We acknowledge that many students face unmet financial needs. Addressing these challenges is a priority, and we continue to explore ways to support students beyond tuition,” Petterson said in an email. “Affordability is a multifaceted issue, and while we recognize the challenges, we remain committed to providing high-value education and supporting students in every way we can.” 

Shrinking state funding for higher education

Wisconsin college costs are partially the result of state and federal policy decisions. Like many of their Midwestern peers, Wisconsin’s public colleges rely heavily on tuition, Woodhouse said.

Wisconsin’s state government allocates nearly 17% less funding per full-time student than it did in 1980, according to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association — a trend UW system leaders are closely watching.

Today, the state provides just 20% of the system’s budget, half the share it covered in 1985, Schuh said.

About 60% of university revenue now comes from tuition and fees, nearly triple the previous levels, Schuh added. 

“This shift has placed a growing financial burden on students and families, limiting access to the same educational opportunities that have long defined Wisconsin’s public universities,” Schuh said. 

Paying for college in Wisconsin could get more difficult in the coming years, Woodhouse said, pointing to recent federal cuts to food aid, Medicaid and other safety net programs. States often  fill the gap in those services by diverting money from education.

Colleges, in turn, may raise tuition to patch budget holes, putting college further out of reach. 

”That’s just another argument towards the importance of investing in higher education funding, both operational support for public institutions and also need-based aid in the years to come,” Woodhouse said.

Wisconsin tech college tuition over the last decade has risen no faster than inflation, Petterson said. At UW system campuses, tuition rose 4% to 5% this year, following a 10-year tuition freeze.

Political debates are swirling around the value of college, with Republicans increasingly asking whether pursuing a degree is worthwhile. Carole Trone, executive director of the Wisconsin-based Fair Opportunity Project, wants more bipartisan scrutiny of those high price tags.

“Are colleges doing everything they can do to keep the college costs down?” asked Trone, whose organization offers online counseling to help students nationwide apply to and pay for college. 

Some studies show inflation-adjusted tuition rates have plateaued or even declined, Trone said, but rent and other living costs are soaring. 

“The cost of college keeps going up because of all those other costs that, in some cases, are outside of a college’s control,” Trone said. 

Meanwhile, federal aid doesn’t stretch as far as it used to. Federal Pell grant awards, for instance, have increased more slowly than inflation. In 1975, they covered more than three-quarters of the average cost to attend a public, four-year university, according to the National College Attainment Network. That’s compared to just one-third of average attendance costs today.

UW ‘promise’ aims to fill gap for higher-need students

A growing number of Wisconsin students are eligible to have their full tuition and fees covered with the help of “promise” programs, which pick up remaining costs after eligible students use federal financial aid and scholarships. 

UW-Madison’s Bucky’s Tuition Promise, launched in 2018, helps students with household incomes of $65,000 or less. It covers most costs but excludes expenses like rent, groceries or textbooks.

The UW system expanded the program to other campuses in 2023 but cut it the next year due to budget woes. 

The system resumed the program this fall with private funding: Madison-based student loan guarantor Ascendium Education Group will cover costs for students in households making $55,000 or less. 

Until the program has stable funding, Woodhouse said, eligible students may hesitate to enroll in college for fear of being stuck with costs in future years.

Democratic state lawmakers want to allocate nearly $40 million to provide that stability. They introduced legislation on Thursday to extend the Wisconsin Tuition Promise program with state dollars, covering costs for students of all UW schools except UW-Madison whose families make $71,000 or less. 

“Higher education powers Wisconsin and cost should not prevent students from families in every income bracket in Wisconsin from having the opportunity to earn a degree,” Senate Democratic Leader Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton, said in an emailed statement.

Schuh said the proposal would allow Wisconsin to compete as other states take steps to lower college costs. 

“It would eliminate the affordability gap for thousands of students and restore the promise of higher education as a public good,” Schuh said. “It would ensure that the opportunities available to past generations remain accessible to all Wisconsinites today and into the future.”

Disclosure: Ascendium Education Group is a donor to Wisconsin Watch but has no control over its editorial decisions. A complete list of donors and funders, as well as donation acceptance policies, can be found on our funding page. 

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

Study: Wisconsin trails most states in college affordability 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: 9 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Twelve years after the Kewaunee Power Station shuttered, wounding the local economy, owner EnergySolutions is seeking government approval to build a new nuclear plant at the site — and is trying to buy hundreds of acres of farmland around it. 

• EnergySolutions and gas and electric utility WEC Energy Group say they’re eyeing the station for a new build because they expect data centers, artificial intelligence and industrial growth to increase electricity demand in the coming decades.

• While local residents hope a new plant could bring economic growth, unanswered questions about use of the additional land are making some uneasy.

On a soupy September morning in northeast Wisconsin, a blue semi-truck arrives at Tisch Mills Farm Center in the tiny town of Carlton. Under the hopper of a massive grain bin, roughly 50,000 pounds of ground corn slide down a chute and into the truck’s open back. Within minutes, the driver pulls back onto the road to haul the feed to an Algoma dairy farm, where livestock will eat it. 

This process repeats roughly a dozen times each day, with some trucks transporting grain or fertilizer to customers in Illinois and Minnesota. Business is booming, but President Chris Kohnle worries the 80-year-old, family-run establishment could soon take a blow. 

The reason? The nuclear power plant a few miles up the road, which has sat lifeless for over a decade. 

Twelve years after the Kewaunee Power Station shuttered, wounding the local economy, owner EnergySolutions is seeking government approval to build a new nuclear plant at the site — and is trying to buy hundreds of acres of farmland around it. While local residents hope a new plant could bring economic growth, unanswered questions about use of the additional land are making some uneasy. 

“We’ll be losing land that people grow grain on, that people have fertilized, so that will be a detriment to us,” Kohnle said. 

EnergySolutions and gas and electric utility WEC Energy Group say they’re eyeing the station in the small Kewaunee County town for a new build because they expect data centers, artificial intelligence and industrial growth to increase electricity demand in the coming decades. The plans are in the early stages, and construction likely wouldn’t start until the early 2030s if approved.  

Though they’re attempting to purchase hundreds of acres from locals, the companies haven’t confirmed they intend to construct anything at the site beyond a nuclear plant. But residents are demanding reassurance that the land won’t be used for controversial projects dividing other communities, such as data centers. Officials haven’t ruled out the possibility. 

Town of Carlton Chairman David Hardtke says town officials have heard from data center companies interested in the site, which is making people nervous.

 “The people in Carlton don’t want anything to do with that,” he said.

Despite the nerves, many residents are eager for the economic boost a new nuclear plant could bring to the region. Nuclear energy experts in Wisconsin say communities often enjoy hosting a plant because it creates stable jobs and increases local tax revenues. The project would likely bring thousands of jobs across different sectors, according to WEC.

“The nuclear waste is sitting there anyway, so they can’t do anything else with the property,” Hardtke said. “I’d like to see it rebuilt. They never should have shut it down. … Just rebuild it and start producing power again and we can lower our taxes again.”

A bitter history 

Though the industrial 900-acre facility clashes with its picturesque Lake Michigan backdrop and the surrounding farmland, it once lived in harmony with Kewaunee County and the 1,000-person town of Carlton.

Opened in 1974, the plant was Carlton’s economic engine. The roughly $400,000 it paid in utility taxes funded most of the town’s budget. The station provided hundreds of jobs and employed hundreds of visiting workers who regularly traveled to the area and fueled the local hospitality industry.

But that symbiotic relationship turned sour in 2012 when Dominion, the plant’s then-owner, abruptly announced it would close the facility for economic reasons. 

“I was plowing my field over there on the corner, and channel two, channel five, channel 11, channel 26 — they’re all sitting down there at the end of the field waiting for me,” said Hardtke, gesturing to the land that stretches beyond his yellow house. “They wanted a sob story. That’s what they wanted. And, me, I said, ‘The sun’s gonna come up tomorrow morning, and life goes on.’”

Though the town official was nonchalant about the news, it wasn’t so easy. In the years that followed, the region’s economy took repeated hits. 

Residents recall a mass exodus of plant workers, whose sizable salaries once circulated through the county. Scores of employees put their houses on the market at once, causing prices to drop and sales to slow. Absent the tax revenue from the plant, Carlton officials were forced to raise taxes to close the roughly $400,000 hole in their budget. Kewaunee County introduced a sales tax that continues today. 

Finally, a legal battle between Carlton and Dominion ensnared several parties for years. 

In 2015, Carlton officials hired appraisers who assessed the shuttered plant’s property at $457 million. Dominion sued the town, claiming it was worth about $1.3 million. After years of clashing, they settled outside of court in 2017, agreeing to set the property’s value at $15 million and for the county, the school district and the technical college to repay the nearly $12 million in property taxes Dominion paid during the battle.

“They were big business. They didn’t care about Kewaunee, or the town of Carlton, or anything. All they wanted was dollar signs,” Hardtke said. 

Dominion sold the plant to Utah-based EnergySolutions in 2022. Since then, a smaller number of workers have chipped away at decommissioning the plant — a decades-long process of cleaning up nuclear waste.

But absent the big industry, the area has become “stagnant,” observes Kewaunee resident Dan Giannotti. He said there’s a major lack of development and no real economic draw for people to stay in the area.

“A lot of people drive on (state Highway) 29 into Green Bay for decent-paying jobs. Every day, back and forth. That’s a 30-mile trip, basically. … These poor kids that graduate high school,” Giannotti said, “they’re gonna have to leave to find good-paying jobs.”

Data center rumors spook Carlton

Several months ago, Carlton resident Glenn Mueller received unexpected mail: an offer from EnergySolutions to buy the 60 acres of land he owns neighboring the nuclear plant at $20,000 per acre. 

When several residents received such offers, rumors about the company’s intentions quickly swirled. 

Frustrated by EnergySolutions “buying up land behind our backs” and eager for answers, Hardtke organized a town hall meeting. Over 100 residents attended and demanded transparency about what the land would be used for. 

The next week, EnergySolutions announced it is seeking the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s approval to build a new nuclear facility at the site. 

“We are excited to partner with WEC Energy Group to explore the next generation of nuclear power,” EnergySolutions CEO Ken Robuck said in a press release. “With rising energy demand driven by data centers, artificial intelligence and industrial growth, the need for reliable, carbon-free power has never been greater.”

Nuclear energy has garnered increased support from state lawmakers in recent years, especially as data centers are planned to sprout up around the state. A bipartisan bill passed in July made it easier to construct nuclear power plants. 

“If you look around the country, different legislators and different legislative bodies and policymakers in general are trying to figure out how to position their states to benefit from that growth and not be left behind,” said Paul Wilson, chair of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Nuclear Engineering & Engineering Physics. 

“I think our state policymakers are keen to make sure Wisconsin doesn’t miss out on this,” Wilson said.

Kewaunee is an attractive location because it has hosted a nuclear reactor before, Wilson said. Plus, some infrastructure like transmission lines is still in place. If the site was to be pursued for a data center, the location’s proximity to fresh water is also ideal — data centers need cooling methods to prevent overheating, and Lake Michigan is a good source if used responsibly, Wilson said. 

At an August meeting, Hardtke said the town board heard from data center companies interested in the site. He feels EnergySolutions is “playing with a lot of people’s lives” by not being more transparent. 

“I’m dead set against (building a data center). I was born a farmer, and I’m always proud to be one,” Hardtke said. “I don’t like to see land wasted for that.”

EnergySolutions did not respond to multiple calls and emails from Wisconsin Watch. Asked if there are hopes to build a data processing center at the site, Brendan Conway, the WEC spokesperson, said, “We work regularly with companies across all industries looking to expand their operations. I do not have any specific information about any new developments but we expect electricity demand in Wisconsin to grow significantly and steadily in the coming decades.”

The nonanswers have left Mueller torn about whether to sell his acreage, which borders the nuclear site. He currently leases some of the land to a local family business that uses it to grow hay, and Mueller lets people hunt in the wooded areas. He’s always figured he’d pass it on to his kids. Now, he’s not so sure. 

To make an informed decision, Mueller wants to know what EnergySolutions would use the land for, but nobody has given him those answers. He’s spent hundreds of dollars to have a lawyer review the offer and has debated making a counteroffer. 

“There’d be a lot of people pissed off if I do sell it,” Mueller said. But he’s “not that young anymore,” he said, and the sale could allow him to fully retire and help his children financially.  

“I think everybody in the town is agreeable, happy that nuclear was here,” he said. “I don’t think anybody is upset that it would come back in, but we’re just all upset, as far as we don’t get any answers.”

Eager for an economic boost 

While nuclear power’s potential return to the county has sparked many questions, locals are still largely optimistic about the economic boost it would bring. 

“Jobs, economics, taxes — I think it’d be a great thing,” said Milt Swagel, a county board member who has lived on his Kewaunee farm since 1987. “We have lots of power. I don’t want to be like California or other places with brownouts or blackouts. No, I like my lights.”

Giannotti attends a weekly coffee group with eight other Kewaunee residents, and the nuclear plant has been a popular topic of discussion, including speculation about what will be built at the site. He’s eager to see if nuclear power’s return would help Kewaunee County grow. 

“If you bring in an employer like that who is paying, you’re going to see development,” Giannotti said. “You’re going to see new homes being built and more businesses move in. Because right now, we’re just stagnant. Nothing’s happening to speak of.”

“If that power plant gets going, I think that could ignite.”

WEC Energy Group estimated the project would employ thousands of workers in the region. This includes electrical, civil, chemical and mechanical engineering workers to design and operate the new reactor, plus skilled trades workers such as electricians, welders, pipefitters and construction workers to build it. 

“What you typically find is that communities that have hosted nuclear reactors quite like having them there, because it’s good jobs, it’s tax dollars,” said Ben Lindley, assistant professor at UW-Madison’s Department of Nuclear Engineering & Engineering Physics. 

The addition could also keep more young nuclear engineers in Wisconsin. The state only has one plant, located in Two Rivers, so nuclear engineering graduates often have to look for jobs in other states to break into the field, Lindley said. 

He added that the plant would likely require bringing in nonlocal workers for construction. Even then, the workers would spend several years in the region and “inject money into the local economy.” 

Andy DiMezza, who lives in nearby Denmark, said he would be eager to work at the nuclear plant. DiMezza studied nuclear chemistry in college, and his wife, Sarah, interned at Kewaunee Power Station when it was operating. She also worked on the Two Rivers plant’s emergency response plan — government-mandated preparation for radiological emergencies — and would want to contribute to Kewaunee’s. 

There are still “numerous steps to get through” to determine if the site is suitable for a new plant, Conway said, including the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s “rigorous” permitting process. It could take up to two years for the project to move forward. 

If a permit is granted, Conway estimated construction on the plant could begin in the early 2030s, and the plant could come online in 2038 or 2039.

Before that day comes, residents hope they can make their voices and concerns heard. 

“I’m trying to make as much noise as possible,” Hardtke said. 

“People in Carlton want to be informed,” he said. “They, I think, have a love for the town, just like I do.”

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus.

Nuclear power could return to Kewaunee County. Some locals have reservations. 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: 4 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Wisconsin Watch asked two professors in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Nuclear Engineering & Engineering Physics how a new nuclear plant in Kewaunee County would impact the local workforce and economy.

• They believe there is a ready pipeline of qualified workers in the state to keep up with that added demand.

• Electrical, civil, chemical and mechanical engineering workers will be needed to design and operate the new reactor. The project will also require many people in the skilled trades, such as electricians, welders, pipefitters and other construction workers.

• Many institutions could play a role in preparing workers for jobs at a nuclear power plant, including UW-Madison and Lakeshore Technical College.

In a small farming community off the shore of Lake Michigan, Kewaunee County’s nuclear power plant has sat lifeless for over a decade. But increased demand for power driven by artificial intelligence and data centers could change that. 

Plant owner EnergySolutions and WEC Energy Group are asking the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for approval to build a new nuclear facility at the site. If it is granted, officials expect construction could begin in the early 2030s and the plant could come online by 2040. The process would likely require labor from thousands of workers, WEC spokesperson Brendan Conway said.

Wisconsin Watch asked two professors in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Nuclear Engineering & Engineering Physics how this might impact the local workforce and economy. 

Here’s what to know. 

Does Wisconsin have enough nuclear engineers for a new plant?

Bringing a new power station online means Wisconsin would need more nuclear engineers to design and operate the plant.

Department Chair Paul Wilson and Assistant Professor Ben Lindley believe there is a ready pipeline of qualified workers in the state to keep up with that added demand. 

UW-Madison “pumps out” nuclear engineers, but Wisconsin has only one nuclear plant located in Two Rivers, Lindley said. This leaves some graduates to look for employment in other states. 

“A lot of them want to stay in the state, and so having more job opportunities would certainly help,” Lindley said. 

While there is increased interest in nuclear engineering professions today, Lindley said, the industry does have a gap that is harder to fill: workers in their 40s. 

Many people who flocked to nuclear engineering in the 1970s and 1980s are now retiring, leaving a gap between aging workers and those entering the workforce. The profession has the challenge of training up these younger workers while trying to hang onto older employees for as long as possible.

“When we stopped doing nuclear in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West, there’s that gap in skills of people who weren’t really trained up in the ’90s,” Lindley said. “That’s a trickier one to fill. And the whole sector has that problem.”

There were 78 nuclear engineers employed in Wisconsin in 2022, the most recently available state data shows, and the workforce was projected to shrink by seven jobs by 2032. Those in the occupation made a median salary of $106,740 in 2024. Nuclear engineers typically need a bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering or a related field at minimum.

What other workers will be needed?

In the grand scheme, nuclear engineers are likely the minority of workers who will be needed if a new plant opens, Lindley said. The construction and the operation of the plant are distinct phases that will require a healthy mix of blue- and white-collar workers. 

While Kewaunee Power Station is still standing, EnergySolutions has been decommissioning it — cleaning up nuclear waste and radioactive materials to dismantle the plant — since 2022, meaning the old reactor will not be brought back online, Conway said. It would be a new facility, requiring the construction of a nuclear reactor. 

The companies will need electrical, civil, chemical and mechanical engineering workers to design and operate the new reactor. They’ll also need many people in the skilled trades, such as electricians, welders, pipefitters, and other construction workers to carry out the project. 

“What you’ve seen in other plants like this is, it’s a blend of training local people, sourcing from firms that are already in the state, including construction firms, and then also they’d probably need people coming in from outside in the building phase, as well,” Lindley said. “That’s just because of the amount of people you need, and it’s also the skills that you need. Ideally, you want construction firms involved who have been involved in other nuclear construction projects.”

This is where Wisconsin’s skilled labor shortages may be felt the most. The state has struggled to meet the demand for labor in such professions.

“You need a lot of people in the skilled trades,” Wilson said. “This is a national concern – of whether we can keep up the pipeline of workers.”

That’s why employers have sought to push more prospective workers into apprenticeships, or programs that combine paid, on-the-job training with employer-sponsored classroom learning at a technical college. Apprenticeship participation hit an all-time high in 2024, with construction apprenticeships topping the list. However, Wisconsin still lags neighboring states in apprenticeship participation.

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development includes construction workers, welders and electricians on its  “hot jobs” list — which names well-paying, high-growth jobs. It estimates the occupations have a combined 6,000 jobs open annually. 

Who trains people for this work? 

Many institutions could play a role in preparing workers for the roles needed at a nuclear power plant. 

Roughly 30 students graduate annually from UW-Madison’s nuclear engineering program.

Lakeshore Technical College in Cleveland has been training workers who have hands-on experience at the Kewaunee Power Station, despite it being nonoperational. The college partners with EnergySolutions to supply workers for the decommissioning process. Company officials have said the partnership allows people to work at the plant for several years and then take their skills to other nuclear facilities. 

Beyond this, there’s been a “chicken and egg” problem when it comes to expanding nuclear energy job training, Wilson said. Without a growing industry in the state, it’s been difficult to justify having more programs at higher education institutions. But that could change once Kewaunee Power Station’s future becomes clear. 

“If we were to have signals that these things would be growing, then I think we could do a lot of work,” Wilson said. “We would be eager to engage, from the University of Wisconsin here to some of those technical colleges to help them stand up and set up programs to make sure those people are prepared.”

Some skilled trades workers would also likely undergo further on-the-job training, Wilson said, because there are usually nuclear- and site-specific requirements beyond the typical union-based training to work at a power plant.

Here’s what the return of nuclear power to Kewaunee County means for Wisconsin’s workforce 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: 8 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Incoming undergraduates to UW-Madison will have to fill out the CSS Profile to apply for institutional financial aid.  

• The form is available starting Oct. 1. 

• The CSS Profile will not replace the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which means new freshmen and transfer students will have to fill out both forms. 

• Wisconsin Watch and the Cap Times spoke to UW officials about why they are adding the form, as well as nonprofit leaders who have concerns about the move.

Students applying to the University of Wisconsin-Madison will soon need to complete a second, longer financial aid application if they want a share of the millions of dollars in financial aid the university gives out each year.  

Starting this fall, UW-Madison will require applicants to fill out the CSS Profile, an online application used by around 270 colleges, universities and scholarship programs to award institutional aid, separate from a different form used to apply for federal financial aid. Students can start working on their CSS Profile Oct. 1. 

Many colleges that use the CSS Profile are private. Others are highly selective public universities, such as the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. In Wisconsin, two private schools also use the application: Beloit College and Lawrence University.  

UW-Madison says requiring the application will help direct funds to students who are most in need, but some student advocates worry the extra step could hinder the very students the university aims to help.  

Wisconsin Watch and the Cap Times teamed up to find out what students and their families need to know about this new requirement.

Who needs to complete the CSS Profile?  

Only incoming undergraduate students at UW-Madison who are U.S. citizens or eligible noncitizens must complete the CSS Profile to be considered for institutional financial aid. This group includes both new freshmen and transfer students.  

Continuing students and new graduate students don’t need to complete the form. The university encourages them to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, which guides eligibility for federal assistance.   

Does the CSS Profile replace the FAFSA? 

No. The FAFSA is used to apply for financial aid awarded by the U.S. government, including Pell grants and federal student loans. That form was simplified in recent years to make it easier for families to fill out, despite hiccups during the rollout process. Students who want to apply for federal aid still need to complete the FAFSA each year.  

The CSS Profile is a supplement to the FAFSA, said Taylor Odle, an assistant professor who studies education policy at UW-Madison. The application is run by the College Board, the not-for-profit membership organization that makes the Advanced Placement exams and SAT college admissions test. 

The CSS Profile helps colleges decide how to allocate their own financial aid and scholarship funds by gathering a more detailed picture of a student’s finances than the FAFSA offers. For instance, the application asks about medical debt and about businesses an applicant’s family may have.  

“If you’re a low-income student, while completing the CSS Profile is an additional step for you, it is often potentially in your best interest because it paints the truest picture,” Odle said. 

How much does it cost to complete the CSS Profile? 

UW-Madison applicants will be required to pay a $25 fee to complete the form. But that fee is automatically waived for applicants with a household income below $100,000. 

What’s the deadline for UW-Madison applicants to submit the CSS Profile? 

UW-Madison recommends students applying for the 2026-27 school year submit the CSS Profile by Dec. 1, 2025. Students may submit the form after that date, but December is the deadline for priority consideration for funds. 

Why is UW-Madison now requiring the CSS Profile? 

UW-Madison previously used the FAFSA to allocate all types of financial aid, said Phil Asbury, executive director of the university’s student financial aid office. The CSS Profile will allow UW-Madison to more specifically target university resources toward certain students, especially after the FAFSA recently got shorter, he said. 

“We’re really fortunate in that we have more students coming from low-income families or lower-income families each year. Those are really good things, and we want that to continue,” Asbury said. “But we also want to help as many families as we can, and so this will help us to better focus those funds on the families that need it the most.” 

Asbury worked with the CSS Profile in his previous positions at Northwestern University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While he doesn’t expect the form will be a struggle for UW-Madison applicants, he recognizes it’s an additional step. 

“If families know they will only qualify for a federal loan, or maybe they know they’re Pell Grant eligible and that’s all they need to go to school, then they can continue to only do the FAFSA,” Asbury said. 

UW-Madison provided roughly $200 million in institutional support last school year to undergraduate students, Asbury said. About $150 million was need-based financial aid. 

Students received on average about $17,000 in aid from the university last school year, Asbury said. Nonresident students may receive a bit more since their tuition rates are higher, he said. 

UW-Madison is requiring more information from families amid efforts to game the country’s financial aid system. For example, a Forbes article in March advised parents to use investments or businesses to generate losses that would reduce their adjusted gross income and then qualify them for financial assistance. 

People trying to hide assets on financial aid applications is “an open secret,” said Carole Trone, executive director of Fair Opportunity Project, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit that offers online counseling to help students across the country apply to and pay for college. She worries abuse of the financial aid system is increasing barriers for students who otherwise couldn’t afford to attend college. 

Why are some concerned about the newly required form? 

A 2021 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education called the CSS Profile “The Most Onerous Form in College Admissions.” Since then, the application has been shortened and now uses “skip logic” to bypass parts based on students’ answers to previous questions.  

UW-Madison is using a “lighter version” of the CSS Profile, which has fewer questions than the full version, Asbury said. 

Wisconsin Watch and the Cap Times asked the College Board for the maximum number of questions on the form and for a copy of the application in advance of its Oct. 1 launch. The College Board declined these requests. 

Unlike the FAFSA, the CSS Profile won’t pull financial information directly from an applicant’s tax returns, Trone said.  

Trone remembers completing the CSS Profile years ago when her three kids applied to college. The form asked the value of her 401(k) retirement account and her home and the balance on her mortgage.  

She is worried about students whose parents are unable to help sort through these kinds of questions. That’s why, when UW-Madison announced the new requirement, her team at Fair Opportunity Project started preparing to help students with the CSS Profile, too. 

“I’ll admit, even when I was filling out, I was like, ‘I think that’s the right answer,’” Trone said.  

“There’s no way a student’s going to know that. … Whereas with the FAFSA now you really don’t actually have to have a lot of stuff with you to be able to complete it anymore, with the CSS Profile, it’s going to be a work session.” 

Another key difference: On the FAFSA, students whose parents are divorced or separated need to provide information about the parent who provided more financial support over the last year. The CSS Profile requires information from all living biological parents, step-parents and adoptive parents, with exceptions for a handful of special circumstances, including when a parent is incarcerated, abusive or unknown.  

There are also differences for families who speak other languages. The FAFSA is available in English and Spanish, and families can read guides or request an interpreter in 10 other languages, including Korean, Arabic and French Creole. The CSS Profile is available only in English, with help available by chat, phone and email in Spanish.  

Some who advocate for college access worry UW-Madison’s new requirement will be an additional barrier for students who already struggle to get on the college track. 

“FAFSA itself has been a hurdle for some students applying to college,” said Chris Gomez Schmidt, executive director of Galin Scholars, a Madison nonprofit that coaches a handful of high school seniors through college admissions each year. “I think adding an extra, complicated financial application could potentially disproportionately affect students with fewer resources for applying to college, so students from urban or rural areas across the state of Wisconsin.” 

Galin Scholars plans to teach its participants about the CSS Profile during an October financial aid workshop but many students won’t be so lucky, Gomez Schmidt said.  

Trone at the Fair Opportunity Project isn’t convinced the new requirement will pay off for the university. She noted the vast majority of U.S. colleges don’t use the CSS Profile. 

“I’m curious to see how long UW does this,” Trone said. “Maybe they’ll do it for a couple years and realize they’re not actually getting that much better results.” 

What help will be available? 

As students work through the CSS Profile, they can click on help bubbles for more information. The College Board’s website offers additional guidance, too.  

As with other steps in applying for college, students can also seek help from their high school counselors. UW-Madison informed counselors across the state about the new application at a series of workshops in September, and its financial aid office is available to help applicants. 

“We do workshops on a monthly basis, and traditionally we’ve called those FAFSA Frenzies,” Asbury said. “We might have to rethink that name now, but we tend to do those throughout the year.” 

Applicants seeking more help can find a variety of videos and articles online about filling out the CSS Profile, made by government agencies, nonprofits and entrepreneurs across the country.  

Fair Opportunity Project will offer help with the CSS Profile at its one-on-one virtual counseling sessions, which are free to low-income and first-generation college students. Other students may access these sessions for a fee.   

The organization is hoping to make help even more accessible by launching a free chatbot that answers questions about the CSS Profile, but that task has proven more complicated than anticipated.  

The nonprofit built its existing FAFSA chatbot by training it with the hefty guides and updates the federal government releases each year. The CSS Profile is created by a private entity that isn’t required to make its documentation public. 

“We will need to spend more time converting available webinars and presentations into AI training materials. We need to raise more funds to get this extra work done,” Trone said. She hopes the chatbot will be available to the public by November.  

Meanwhile, she’s also looking into the “potential risks” of creating a chatbot specific to a privately owned application. 

“They are very proprietary about their products, like SAT and AP, so this is a real concern that we need to look further into,” Trone said. 

Why do other Wisconsin schools use CSS Profile? 

Beloit College is a private liberal arts school near the Illinois border that enrolls about 1,000 undergraduate students. The school started using the CSS Profile about six years ago, but only for international students, said Betsy Henkel, the college’s director of financial aid. 

“We also have an internal application,” Henkel said. “But as you can imagine, if students are applying to 10 schools for admission, the thought of doing one application and sending it to 10 schools is much more appealing than doing multiple financial aid applications with each of them.” 

When access to the federal government’s simplified FAFSA was delayed in recent school years, Beloit College temporarily used the CSS Profile to give domestic students a financial aid estimate while they waited, Henkel said. 

Lawrence University — a private liberal arts school in Appleton with roughly 1,500 students — has used the CSS Profile for over a decade, Ryan Gebler, the university’s financial aid director, said in an email.  

Similar to UW-Madison, Lawrence University uses a “lighter version” of the CSS Profile, with fewer questions, Gebler said. Overall, the application process has gone smoothly at Lawrence, he said. 

“Simply put: Compared to the FAFSA, the CSS Profile provides a more accurate calculation of what a student and their family can pay for college,” Gebler said.   

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

Becky Jacobs is an education reporter for the Cap Times. Becky writes about universities and colleges in the Madison region. Email story ideas and tips to Becky at bjacobs@captimes.com or call (608) 620-4064.

UW-Madison is changing its financial aid process. Here’s what to know. 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

• Alverno College, Herzing University, Gateway Technical College and Mount Mary University could lose millions of dollars in aid after the U.S. Department of Education announced plans to end grant programs it deemed unconstitutional.

• The grant programs offer federal aid to colleges and universities where designated shares of students are Black, Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Asian American or Pacific Islander. 

• The Wisconsin colleges that would see the greatest impact are Hispanic-serving institutions, which means at least 25% of their students are Hispanic, among other requirements. 

• Experts say the grant programs were meant to level the playing field, and colleges often created supports with the federal funding that affect students of all demographics. 

• In addition, several Wisconsin colleges that could soon become Hispanic-serving institutions told Wisconsin Watch they plan to continue to pursue the designation.

Wisconsin colleges and universities with significant Hispanic and Latino populations could lose millions after the U.S. Department of Education announced that it plans to end several long-standing grant programs it says violate the Constitution. 

In Wisconsin, the change would affect Alverno College, Herzing University, Gateway Technical College and Mount Mary University. 

The seven grant programs in question award money to minority-serving schools for things like tutoring, research opportunities, counseling or campus facilities. 

The funds are available only to schools where a designated share of students are Black, Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Asian American or Pacific Islander, though the money can be used for initiatives that serve students of all demographics at those schools. 

“Discrimination based upon race or ethnicity has no place in the United States,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. “The Department looks forward to working with Congress to reenvision these programs to support institutions that serve underprepared or under-resourced students without relying on race quotas.”

The $350 million previously allocated for grants for the 2025-26 school year will be “reprogrammed” to programs that “advance Administration priorities,” the department said.

The department will also discontinue existing grants, meaning schools that were previously awarded multi-year funding will not receive any remaining payments. 

The largest share of the affected schools are Hispanic-serving institutions, including four in Wisconsin. More than 600 colleges hold that designation, which the Department of Education has awarded for about 30 years to colleges that meet several qualifications including having an undergraduate student body that’s at least 25% Hispanic.

The announcement does not affect funding for tribal colleges or historically Black colleges. The Department of Education announced $495 million in additional one-time funding for historically Black colleges and for tribal colleges.

It’s unclear how much funding Wisconsin’s schools stand to lose in total. The newest on the list, Gateway Technical College, applied for funding for the first time in July, seeking $2.8 million over five years, spokesperson Lee Colony said. The school was still waiting for a decision when the department announced it was canceling the program. 

Wisconsin’s other three Hispanic-serving institutions did not answer questions from Wisconsin Watch. 

When Herzing University became a Hispanic-serving institution last year, Wisconsin Public Radio reported that the Kenosha school had received a $2.7 million five-year grant.

The list also includes both of Wisconsin’s women-only schools, Mount Mary University and Alverno College, the latter of which has recently faced money troubles. Its board of directors declared a financial emergency in 2024. After cutting 14 majors, six graduate programs and dozens of staff and faculty, the school and its accreditor say it’s now in a stronger financial position, but the school did not respond to further questions.

The cuts could be especially consequential in Wisconsin because the state’s minority-serving institutions are smaller schools with smaller budgets, said Marybeth Gasman, executive director of the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions.

“If they lose funding, it will hurt students — especially low-income and first-generation college students,” Gasman said.

But the announcement doesn’t necessarily seal the fate of these grant programs. Gasman anticipates lawsuits over the funds that were already awarded to institutions, on the grounds that the administration can’t rescind funds that Congress has allotted. 

“My hope is that Congress will step in and support these important institutions,” Gasman said.

Meanwhile, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities released a statement calling the decision “an attack on equity in higher education” that “erases decades of progress and hurts millions of students.” 

The organization said it would “continue to fight alongside students and institutions to defend these essential programs and ensure that opportunity, equity and investment in higher education are not rolled back.”

The case for HSIs

More than two-thirds of all Latino undergrads attend a Hispanic-serving institution, according to the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. Proponents of the grant program say it helps a group of students who haven’t always been well supported in U.S. schools and colleges, and that, in turn, helps the economy.  

“There are communities that have been excluded from educational opportunity, and they deserve the right to a high-quality education. That’s what democracy looks like,” said Anthony Hernandez, an education policy researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies Hispanic-serving institutions.

“By concentrating these federal resources, we can help them gain momentum to get into white-collar pathways and imagine that they could become nurses, they can become doctors, captains of industry, they can become scientists,” he said.

Hernandez disputes the Department of Education’s claim that it’s discriminatory to set aside funds specifically for minority-serving institutions. 

“For most of U.S. history, minority students were either explicitly excluded from higher education or funneled into segregated, underfunded schools,” Hernandez said. 

Minority-serving institutions were created to level the playing field, which remains slanted by bias, economic inequality and disparities in funding across K-12 schools, he said.

“This policy change presents itself as a defense of fairness, but effectively punishes institutions that were created to repair unfairness,” Hernandez said. “It withdraws critical support from communities still facing barriers and undermines the very schools helping to expand opportunity and strengthen the economy.”

He argues the program should be grown, not dismantled. The number of Hispanic-serving institutions has soared, he said, and the available funds haven’t kept up. 

“They’ve constantly had to fight for funding,” Hernandez said. “They’ve never been adequately funded.”

If the Department of Education succeeds at cutting these grant programs, he anticipates that graduation and transfer rates at these schools will drop. 

The cuts so far don’t affect grants issued to minority-serving institutions by other departments, including the Department of Agriculture and the National Science Foundation. But Hernandez worries more cuts could be coming.

“We imagine that that is eventually going to encompass all of the different arteries of the federal government that dole out monies to the minority-serving institutions,” Hernandez said. “I don’t think it’s finished.”

Gasman agrees. “I think the Trump administration is challenging the entire MSI framework, which has had bipartisan support in Congress,” Gasman said.

Wisconsin colleges serve growing Hispanic population

Watching from the sidelines are eight other Wisconsin colleges that have spent years trying to become Hispanic-serving institutions. At those schools, designated by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities as “Emerging Hispanic-Serving Institutions,” at least 15% of full-time undergrad students are Hispanic. 

In the 2023-24 school year, there were 425 such schools in the U.S. In Wisconsin, the group includes a mix of private colleges, public universities and technical colleges.

They say they’ll keep up working to better serve Hispanic students even if the federal funds disappear.

The Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design joined the Emerging list in 2021, and its Hispanic enrollment has risen each year since, President Jeffrey Morin said. 

About 19% of the incoming freshman class is Hispanic, and the city of Milwaukee is 20% Hispanic.

“For us, it is a natural reflection of the community that we serve,” Morin said, though he notes that the school selects students based on their academic record and a portfolio of their work, not their demographics.

“We are not sculpting a freshman class. We are serving the people who want to join our community,” Morin said. “And when a … noticeable portion of our population comes from a particular background, we want to make sure that we meet the needs of that population.”

Being designated as an Emerging Hispanic-serving institution hasn’t brought new funds to the school, but it “puts us in a community with other regional higher ed institutions so that … we can discuss and discover best practices and trends,” Morin said.

Hispanic students are the fastest-growing group in higher education. As their numbers boom, more Emerging schools could meet the 25% benchmark and become full-fledged Hispanic-serving institutions.

That’s the plan at the institute, Morin said, adding that the funds would help non-Hispanic students too. For example, he said, many Hispanic students are also the first in their families to go to college. The grant funds could be used for programs that would support first-generation students, regardless of their race or ethnicity.

“A rising tide lifts all boats,” Morin said. “The funding support that would come in to help one population will help other populations as well.”

‘Emerging’ schools not deterred

Despite recent news, MIAD officials say the school isn’t changing its plans. Supporting Hispanic students is particularly important now, Morin said, as the national rhetoric around immigrants grows increasingly hostile.

“What changes is that we’ll lose particular opportunities to partner (with the federal government) in service to the Hispanic community,” Morin said. “What doesn’t change is our commitment to serving the Hispanic community. We will simply look for new partners in that work.”

Several other Emerging institutions expressed similar sentiments.

The mission of the federal program “aligns with our Catholic, Jesuit mission to keep a Marquette education accessible to all,” said Marquette University spokesperson Kevin Conway. The university announced in 2016 that it intended to become a Hispanic-serving institution. Since then, the Hispanic share of its student body has grown from 10% to about 16% in fall 2024.

“Like all colleges and universities, Marquette is monitoring changes in the higher education landscape and the resources available to help the students we ​serve,” Conway said. “One thing that will not change is Marquette’s commitment to its mission and supporting our community.”

A spokesperson for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where about 15% of students are Hispanic, said the school “remains steadfast in its access mission, ensuring higher education is attainable for all, regardless of background or income.”

Milwaukee Area Technical College, meanwhile, announced last year that it was “on the verge” of achieving full HSI status with 23.4% of its full-time students identifying as Hispanic.

“We’re very, very close,” MATC President Anthony Cruz said at the time.

Asked about the latest developments, spokesperson Darryll Fortune said the school “will continue to pursue HSI status regardless.”

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

This story was updated to include an announcement made by the Department of Education that the agency will award historically Black colleges and tribal colleges $495 million in one-time funding.

Wisconsin colleges vow to keep supporting Hispanic students despite federal funding 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.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Every time third-year Milwaukee Area Technical College student Devin Hayden comes to the Office of Multicultural Services, student service specialists welcome her with open arms.

“It’s literally just nothing but ‘hi Devin, how are you doing? How’s your parents?’ ” she said. “I felt like I could talk to them about anything that was going on.”

Now, students like Hayden are wondering where they’ll find support once the office closes on Sept. 18. 

In August, MATC announced it is restructuring the office into a new Office of Community Impact and eliminating four student service specialist positions to comply with federal recommendations to end race-based practices.

Some are questioning whether the decision aligns with the message the college sends regarding inclusivity and diversity. 

‘Safe space’

Walter Lanier remembers students walking through the doors of the Office of Multicultural Services saying, “this is different when I walk in here.”

Lanier, who ran the department until 2020 and left MATC in 2022, said many students of color consider the office their “home base.” He thinks it will be almost impossible to fill the gap left by eliminating four student support specialists.

They specialize in serving the needs of Black, Indigenous, Asian and Hispanic students but also work with students from other backgrounds.

The office also rescued leftover food from the cafeteria and gave it out to students free of charge, Hayden said. She said some students came to the office for food every day.

“I would cash in on that because sometimes I don’t have enough money for lunch,” Hayden said.

Crystal Harper, a student who’s taken classes at MATC for nine years, said the office is her “safe space.” She credits the office for supporting her growth in school, even connecting her with an internship and supporting her candidacy for MATC governor.

“When eagles fly, they don’t have to move their wings. They’re just soaring. So they told me to be like the eagles — continue to soar,” Harper said. “That’s what my plans are, to continue to soar.”

Hayden, who identifies as a Black queer woman, said she didn’t just feel like a number at the Office of Multicultural Services like she does in other spaces on campus. 

Eliminating that space contradicts the college’s message of “community and inclusivity,” Hayden said. 

“The message that (the college is) spreading that yes, we promote students, we promote students of different walks of life but then at the same time we’re going to eliminate this entire department is ridiculous to me,” Hayden said. “None of us are trusting that. None of us think that that decision is right.”

MATC to ‘champion holistic support for all students’

The four student service specialists received an email on Aug. 19 informing them that the Office of Multicultural Services will be restructured into the Office of Community Impact and their positions would be eliminated.

The office will “champion holistic support for all students,” MATC told NNS in a statement.

The decision comes amid the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke federal funding from colleges and universities that use “race-conscious practices” in programs or activities. 

MATC leaders said they restructured the office to align with the administration’s guidance because the office solely serviced students who identify as a specific race or ethnic group. 

“Fulfilling our mission to serve all students in our community while adjusting to this guidance from the U.S. Department of Education has been challenging,” read the statement from MATC. “We want to continue to stress our commitment and focus on supporting each and every one of our students, providing them with the resources they need to succeed.” 

In August, U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie Gallagher in Maryland determined that the way the Trump administration attempted to threaten revoking Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs was unconstitutional. 

MATC leaders said they are equally committed to supporting the employees whose positions were eliminated.

In the email, Michael Rogers, vice president of student engagement and community impact, invited support specialists to apply for two new positions within the Office of Community Impact: one that focuses on “specialized training and student events” and another for “mentorship programs,” if they wished. 

Additional concerns

In an Aug. 26 MATC District Board meeting, student service specialist Floyd C. Griffin III, who worked in multicultural services for four years, asked the board why the college eliminated his position. 

“I’m living through the indignity of working day after day knowing that my service, my dedication and my livelihood have already been dismissed by leadership,” Griffin said. “After years of commitment, this is how the college treats its employees of color — rushed, silenced and discarded.” 

The four service specialists are people of color. 

Tony Baez, the former MATC vice president of academic affairs, implemented bilingual programs at MATC in the 1990s. He said MATC President Anthony Cruz should rethink eliminating support specialists.

“MATC is an institution that is so large that with each (support specialist), you can ease them into other kinds of positions to help those students that need the support systems,” Baez said. “He had options.”

Milwaukee tech college’s multicultural service cuts prompt pushback 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: 5 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Some of the state’s fastest-growing jobs are in the health care and green energy fields. 

• Jobs projected to have the most openings tend to have high turnover and pay lower wages, according to state and federal data. 

• Many jobs that are shrinking the fastest are based on outdated technologies or practices. 

• Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development keeps a list of the “Hot Jobs” statewide – jobs that pay above the median wage, are expected to grow faster than average and have the most projected openings.

When Wisconsin Watch this spring launched a new pathways to success beat focused on jobs and job training, we set out to learn how Wisconsinites are building family-sustaining careers and what’s standing in their way. 

Doing that required knowing how the job tides are changing in Wisconsin. What jobs are growing the fastest? Which are shrinking? What will be the most common jobs in the coming years, and what do they pay?  The six charts below use state and federal data to answer those questions.

To learn more about any of these jobs, including what the work entails, how much it pays and how to get trained, click on the links in the article or visit a website like careeronestop.org, onetonline.org or skillexplorer.wisconsin.gov.

We’re planning follow-up coverage related to some of the growing fields on these lists. Which job or jobs would you like to learn more about? What questions do you have? Fill out this short Google form to let us know.

Which jobs are growing the fastest in Wisconsin?

Some of Wisconsin’s fastest-growing jobs are jobs in health and green energy fields, as you might expect. That includes the top four: 

• Wind turbine service technicians, projected to grow by 75% in Wisconsin from 2022 to 2032, adding 30 jobs.
• Nurse practitioners, projected to grow by 51%, adding 2,530 jobs.
• Computer and information research scientists, projected to grow by 44%, adding 40 jobs. 
• Data scientists, projected to grow by 43%, adding 1,230 jobs.

Others on the list seem more surprising. Despite the prevalence of online booking platforms and travel influencers hyping up their favorite spots, the ranks of travel agents are growing as Americans resume travel post-pandemic and want someone else to do the planning. In Wisconsin, the number of travel agents is projected to increase by 350, or 38%. The state is also projected to add 430 jobs for animal trainers, a 36% increase that comes as Americans own a growing number of pets and spend more on them.

Six of the jobs that ranked in the top 10 fastest-growing have median salaries of $85,000 or more. Seven of the top 10 typically require a college degree, and four typically require a graduate degree.

Of the jobs that ranked in the top 10, just two (nurse practitioner and data scientist) are projected to add more than 1,000 jobs. Several are projected to add fewer than 200. By comparison, the state’s most common job, home health and personal care aide, is projected to have 14,150 annual openings, in part because of high turnover among those workers. 

Three jobs were tied with physician assistants for 10th place. One is rail yard engineers, also known as hostlers or dinkey operators, who inspect train equipment and drive small locomotives to move railcars. The others are aircraft service attendants, who re-fuel planes and service them between flights, and administrative law judges or adjudicators, who rule on government matters. But while all three are projected to grow by 33% in Wisconsin, the number of physician assistants is projected to grow by 970, and the ranks of aircraft service attendants are projected to grow by just 50. Administrative law judges and rail yard engineers are projected to grow by just 10. 

One note: These projections may not account for the latest developments in the job landscape, including how artificial intelligence might change the way Americans work, or what kinds of workers are needed. Gov. Tony Evers in 2023 appointed a task force to study how AI might transform Wisconsin’s labor market. The group found that bookkeepers, data entry keyers, credit analysts and insurance claims processors are among those whose work most overlaps with AI capabilities. They note that that doesn’t mean those workers will necessarily be replaced by AI; they could instead end up using AI tools to make their jobs easier or more efficient.

The task force also did the same analysis for the state’s 10 most common jobs. It found all had “middling” levels of AI exposure, suggesting they may not experience as much change with AI as some occupations will. 

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s administration has taken steps to reverse renewable energy initiatives, a move that could threaten the projected job growth for wind turbine service technicians. Twice this year the federal government halted construction of offshore wind farms.

Which jobs will have the most openings in Wisconsin?

Some occupations have lots of openings each year not because the industry is growing but because turnover is high. The jobs projected to have the most future openings in Wisconsin also pay some of the lowest wages. The top four have median annual salaries of less than $35,000 a year, and all of the top 10 have salaries under $46,000. None require education beyond a high school diploma, and most don’t require any formal education.

One in 10 Wisconsin workers holds one the top five jobs on this list, all with a 2022 median wage under $46,000. About 215,000 of those people work in jobs with a median wage under $35,000.

Of the 10 most common jobs, two stand out for higher average wages: registered nurse ($86,070) and truck driver ($57,380). 

The state’s most common job involves caring for older adults or people with disabilities in their homes, helping with tasks like bathing, medication and grocery shopping. Across the country, demand for these workers is growing as more Americans choose to age in their homes rather than in assisted living or nursing facilities. In Wisconsin, the number of residents over 65 is expected to almost double by 2040, increasing demand. Industry leaders and disability advocacy groups say they already struggle to hire and retain enough workers as wages in other entry-level jobs rise, and they’ve called on the state to raise the Medicaid reimbursement rate, which pays for most of this care. The 2025-27 state budget allocates $19 million to raise that rate, less than half of what Evers requested.

Declining employment

Many of the jobs shrinking the fastest are ones you might expect: those based on outdated technologies or practices. About one in four positions held by telemarketers, switchboard operators, couriers, door-to-door salespeople and street vendors is projected to vanish by 2032.

Of the top 10 fastest-shrinking jobs, nine don’t usually require a college education. 

Secretaries and administrative assistants are expected to lose the most jobs (2,420), followed by couriers and messengers (1,990), customer service representatives (1,550) and tellers (1,290).

Nursing assistant ranks are projected to shrink, too (by 720, or 3%), though that field will remain big in Wisconsin, with estimated 26,510 nursing assistant jobs in 2032.

‘Hot Jobs’

Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development keeps a list of the “Hot Jobs” statewide and in each of 11 regions. These jobs pay above the median wage for the state or region, are expected to grow faster than average and have the most projected openings. Visit this website to see the data and sort it in various ways. 

One major caveat about this data: It compares 2032 to 2022, when COVID-19 was still disrupting the economy, so it favors jobs that have rebounded after shrinking during the pandemic. 

For example, registered nurses don’t appear on the “Hot Jobs” list. The job pays well and it’s growing quickly, but few nurses lost their jobs in the pandemic. That means the field isn’t growing as much as those that saw major pandemic layoffs, said DWD Senior Research Analyst Maria del Pilar Casal. She expects registered nurses will make the list next time.

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

The future of work in Wisconsin, in six charts 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: 4 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Northeast Wisconsin’s fastest-growing jobs span a variety of industries, including health care and logistics.  

• Jobs in the region with the most openings tend to have low barriers to entry and tend to pay relatively low wages. 

• While the paper industry has a strong foothold in the northeast, paper goods machine operators are expected to lose the most positions.

What are the roughly 450,000 workers in northeast Wisconsin doing for a living? And how will that change in the next decade? We pored over state workforce data to find out. 

Below are six charts you can use to make sense of which jobs are growing and shrinking across the region. 

Wisconsin Watch also published a version with data that encompasses jobs across the entire state.

This article is solely focused on job trends in northeast Wisconsin. As we continue to build our new northeast Wisconsin bureau, you can expect us to provide more stories tailored to the region. 

Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development — the state agency from which we sourced this data — defines the “Bay Area” as Brown, Door, Florence, Kewaunee, Manitowoc, Marinette, Menominee, Oconto, Outagamie, Shawano and Sheboygan counties. 

To learn more about any of these jobs, including what the work entails, how much it pays and how to get trained, visit a website like careeronestop.org, onetonline.org or skillexplorer.wisconsin.gov.

Jobs growing rapidly

Home health and personal care aides are the fastest-growing occupation in the region, expected to add nearly 1,200 jobs by 2032. Wisconsin will need more workers to assist older adults as the state’s population continues to age significantly, with the number of residents over the age of 74 expected to increase 41% between 2020 and 2030.

Several of the occupations on this list are already some of the most popular in the region, so the hundreds to thousands of jobs they’re expected to add represent a smaller share of the area’s overall workforce. When looking at growth by percentage, some other occupations are expected to add a smaller number of jobs, but they will constitute a larger share of the workforce.

The occupations expected to grow most percentage-wise include:

• Nurse practitioners, projected to grow 62% by adding 450 jobs.
• Data scientists, projected to grow 47% by adding 148 jobs. 
• Physician assistants, projected to grow 41% by adding 128 jobs.
• Actuaries, projected to grow 41% by adding 49 jobs.
• Information security analysts, projected to grow 41% by adding 115 jobs.

Jobs with the most openings

Some occupations have lots of openings each year — not necessarily because the industry is growing but because there are more people leaving their roles.

Many of the jobs projected to have the most future openings have low barriers to entry, meaning they don’t require formal education or certification to obtain. They also pay relatively low wages — for example, topping the list is fast food counter workers, who made an average salary of $27,890 in the region in 2024. 

Most common jobs

Many of the jobs that have the most openings each year are also the most common jobs for northeast Wisconsinites to hold. 

The 10 most common occupations in the region span largely essential jobs, including the workers who treat you at the hospital, those keeping the region’s restaurant industry alive and the people who make sure your packages are safely packed and delivered. 

The most rapidly shrinking jobs

While the paper industry has a strong foothold in the northeast, paper goods machine operators top the list for anticipated job loss. This includes workers who tend paper goods machines that convert, saw, corrugate or seal paper or paperboard sheets into products.

Other industries are expected to lose fewer jobs, but those losses will make a larger dent in the profession. Some of the occupations expected to lose the most percentage-wise are:

• Broadcast technicians, expected to lose 35 jobs, a 60% decrease. 
• Word processors and typists, expected to lose 10 jobs, a 37% decrease. 
• Nuclear engineers, expected to lose eight jobs, a 23% decrease. 
• Pressers, textile, garment, and related materials, expected to lose 18 jobs for a 20% decrease.
• Data entry keyers, expected to lose 72 jobs, a 19% decrease. 

Most of these occupations — telemarketers, typists and data entry keyers — are based on outdated technologies or practices, so the fact that they’re shrinking quickly may not be surprising. 

Northeast Wisconsin’s ‘Hot Jobs’

Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development keeps a list of the “Hot Jobs” in every region of the state. To be classified as such, the occupation must pay above the state’s median salary, have an above-average growth rate and top the list of projected job openings.

Use the table to explore what education and training northeast Wisconsin’s “Hot Jobs” provide, what they pay and how they’re expected to grow. 

Note: This data may be slightly skewed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The department says it accounts for pandemic impacts “as accurately as possible.” Some occupations that regularly have large growth rates didn’t make the cut if they didn’t show a significant decline in 2020 followed by a notable recovery, the department notes.

See how any job is expected to change

Is there a job you’re curious about that didn’t make one of our charts? Use this searchable database of hundreds of occupations to see how each is expected to change in the northeast region by 2032. 

We’re planning follow-up coverage related to Wisconsin’s fastest-growing fields. Which jobs would you like to learn more about? Fill out this short Google form to let us know.

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Connect with her on X, Instagram or Bluesky. Email her at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

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

Job hunting in northeast Wisconsin? Check out these charts 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

• Pay raises and other efforts have done little to ease the 911 dispatcher shortage in Brown County: The county is short more than one in three of its needed dispatchers. 

• Boosting pay isn’t enough to attract and retain dispatchers, experts say – departments must boost morale, get creative with hiring and training and address the mental health toll the job takes. 

• Waukesha County officials made changes that show promise: The county’s 911 center went from over half-vacant to almost fully staffed in two years. 

• Furthermore, advocates support federal legislation that would reclassify all 911 dispatchers as first responders, which would allow dispatchers to access benefits like additional mental health resources.

For years, Brown County has struggled to hire people to answer 911 calls and coordinate responses to emergencies. Its emergency dispatch center was among many that grappled with worsened staffing shortages after the COVID-19 pandemic. 

But as the crisis eases nationwide, major shortages still beset Brown County’s 911 center. Despite past pay raises and other efforts, the county is missing more than one in three of its needed dispatchers. Industry experts say boosting pay isn’t enough to attract dispatchers nowadays. Departments must also boost morale, get creative with hiring and training and address the mental health toll the job takes. 

Waukesha County’s 911 center offers an example of how such measures can help alleviate shortages. It placed a laser focus on employee mental well-being and went from over half-vacant to almost fully staffed in two years.

The Brown County vacancies haven’t impacted how quickly dispatchers pick up the phone when residents dial 911 — employees still answer faster than the national standard recommends. But some county leaders are worried that mistakes will be made if the issue continues.

Only one of the five elected supervisors who helm a committee overseeing the county’s public safety operations answered calls and emails for this story. Supervisor Michael LaBouve, who represents most of the east side of De Pere, told Wisconsin Watch the county is following a plan to address the shortage and solving it is “going to take time.”

“I think we’re all seeing progress, so that’s all I have to communicate about that,” LaBouve said. “I feel good about what’s happening.”

But at 19 employees short, the center tallies more vacancies today than it did several years ago when the county first prioritized the crisis, and some are losing their patience. 

During a public meeting in late May, supervisors aired their frustration at the lack of progress. Dispatchers worked a combined 8,600 hours of overtime so far this year, the department said, and they’ve routinely taken to local government meetings to voice their experiences with stress and burnout. 

“Looking at us to go 60, 70, potentially 80 hours and being called in on the days off and 24/7 is just — it’s mind-boggling,” dispatcher Kirk Parker said during a May meeting. 

Money not the answer?

Staffing shortages have plagued the public safety communications industry for years, but the issue peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2019 and 2023, about one in four dispatch jobs across the country were vacant, research by the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch suggested. 

There are still “alarming strains” on the industry, but there are recent signs of progress, said April Heinze, chief of 911 operations for the National Emergency Number Association, a national nonprofit of dispatch industry professionals. Research by NENA shows 74% of centers reported having vacant positions in 2025, improved from 82% in 2024. 

However, those improvements aren’t reflected locally. Brown County was short 19 staffers in early August, according to officials, leaving about 35% of the center vacant. 

“Like playing a game of Whack-a-Mole: as quickly as one issue can be addressed, another issue pops up,” Chancy Huntzinger, Brown County’s director of public safety communications, said in a statement to Wisconsin Watch. 

In 2023, in one of its first major efforts to attract and retain staff, Brown County’s Board of Supervisors voted to allocate over $400,000 for raises, retention bonuses and a starting pay boost. Pay now starts at $24.60 per hour, according to the department. 

But the raises haven’t attracted more staff the way county leaders hoped. The center is currently short more employees than when the pay bumps were approved.

“Obviously, pay is not always the most important thing,” Heinze said. Data from the study NENA completed in May showed the largest affliction for dispatchers across the country is burnout. 

Plus, the pay boost didn’t do much to make Brown County stand out to job seekers. The department’s minimum pay is middle-of-the-pack compared to other northeast Wisconsin counties.

Waukesha’s methods show promise

Roughly two hours south, Waukesha County’s 911 agency has made outsized progress in solving its dispatcher shortage. 

When COVID-19 prompted the “Great Resignation,” dozens of dispatchers left Waukesha County Communications Center for higher-paying, lower-stress jobs in public safety technology startups, utility company call centers and other nearby 911 centers.

By October 2023, the center was over half empty. Down over 20 dispatchers, senior staff were forced to pick up call-taking shifts. Staff worked during their time off. Employees regularly picked up back-to-back 12-hour shifts.

“People were starting to feel burnt out, and really it became a snowball effect,” said Gail Goodchild, the county’s emergency preparedness director. “We saw bad attitudes. People didn’t want to come into work. The culture was waning.”

Department leaders realized they needed “all hands on deck” to turn things around, Goodchild said — which they did. According to NENA, they had only two vacancies in July. 

The department did raise pay, bringing the starting hourly wage to $29.44 from roughly $27. This helped, but “wasn’t the leading thing that really turned us around,” Goodchild said. Department leaders also parted with staff they felt “didn’t contribute to a positive culture.” They revamped their hiring and training processes and eased the job requirements. And they introduced an intense focus on dispatchers’ mental health.

Waukesha’s hiring process once heavily relied on CritiCall, a software commonly used in 911 centers that tests potential dispatchers’ skills at multitasking, decision-making, map reading and more. It was determined the test was “weeding people out that would have probably been a really good fit,” said Chris Becker, Waukesha’s communications operations manager. 

“We looked at our numbers in that and determined that there was no correlation between our successful trainees and their CritiCall scores being high,” Becker said. “So we tossed that out.” 

Now, the hiring committee strictly focuses on if a candidate will fit the department’s culture. To ensure people learn the hard skills the exam measures, the department has refined and revamped its training. (Brown County candidates must pass the CritiCall exam to be hired, and the county has not considered changing that, Huntzinger said.)

Waukesha also removed its two-year work experience requirement from the job description to yield more candidates, a move it may soon reverse because it’s seen that having “some of that life experience” is good, Becker said. 

Finally, the county ramped up mental health support to dispatchers. In addition to regular benefits offered in the county’s employee assistance program, it contracted a local mental health provider specializing in first responders. Dispatchers now regularly attend mandatory, confidential 90-minute meetings with the providers, who help employees work through vicarious trauma, a type of trauma common among first responders that compounds when hearing, reading or witnessing distressing events. The grant-funded initiative costs roughly $16,000 for 18 months, Becker said. 

“In case our staff ever gets to a point where they need them, they feel more comfortable to reach out for that help, rather than living with it and burying it and then getting to that point of burnout again,” Becker said.

Brown County has not explored increased mental health support as a method of retention. Staff are encouraged to visit the Public Safety Communications director’s office if they have concerns, and they can receive counseling benefits through the county’s employee assistance program, Huntzinger said. 

“We’re listening to people’s worst days, right? We hang up the phone when the first responders get there, and then it’s left to our imagination to fill in the blanks,” Becker said. “But some of those traumatic calls just don’t go away, and they’ll pop up at random times, or a call three years later will remind you of a call that you took, and you’re right back to that place again. … It’s super important for our staff to have that outlet.”

Looking ahead

After bumping pay, Brown County’s Board of Supervisors requested an independent review of the dispatch center in 2024. The report, delivered in January 2025, made 65 recommendations on how the center could improve operations and its staffing. 

The department has made mixed progress on implementing the recommendations, which vary in complexity, and gives monthly progress updates to the board’s Public Safety Committee.

Per the advice of the consultants, the department introduced employee referral bonuses and now has candidates visit the call center before they interview, rather than after.

The department will also hire “traveling dispatchers” — temporary contractors who will work at the center for six months to cover some shifts, Huntzinger said. She did not answer a question from Wisconsin Watch about how much this will cost the county. 

Next year, the center will introduce a new shift schedule to help it operate more effectively with less staff, Huntzinger said. Though consultants recommended the county’s “unnecessarily complex” schedule be changed immediately, it was delayed following employee pushback. 

The report also suggested the county “substantially expand” partnerships with local education institutions to create a pipeline of candidates. Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, which offers workforce training in emergency dispatch, said it has not been formally assigned  recruitment efforts but it aims to support the region’s workforce needs. 

In the last four years, 84 students have completed programs that certify them in emergency dispatch. Twenty-seven of those included a tour of the Brown County Dispatch Center.

“One of the biggest barriers is awareness,” Jeff Steeber, the college’s associate dean of public safety, said of the struggle to get students into the field. “Many students enter our programs without knowing that emergency dispatch is a viable and rewarding career option.”

Industry leaders have spent years advocating for legislation they believe would change this. 

The federal 911 Saves Act, championed by both NENA and Waukesha leaders, would reclassify all 911 dispatchers as first responders for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which currently lists them as clerical or secretarial employees, alongside office clerks and taxi dispatchers.

This would allow dispatchers to access a slate of benefits, such as increased mental health resources, and it would reinforce the cruciality of the job, Heinze said.

“You hear little kids say, ‘I want to be a firefighter. I want to be a police officer,’” Goodchild said. “They don’t look at a 911 telecommunicator dispatcher as a career path. That hurts the industry, too.”

Eighteen states have passed their own laws reclassifying telecommunicators, but Wisconsin is not one of them.

“We’re hopeful this year that it is going to (pass), and it would help us, I think, very, very, very much,” Heinze said. 

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus.

Brown County’s 911 dispatcher shortage is relentless. What will it take to fix it? 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

• Northeast Wisconsin Technical College is part of a growing trend of technical colleges moving to shorter courses, and it’s among few to offer classes almost exclusively in an eight-week semester model.

• Administrators and instructors say the intensive pace helps students perform better and prevents them from dropping out when they face hardships outside of school.

• NWTC’s retention and graduation rates have improved since the college began offering shorter courses.

Halfway through his Monday morning class at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College’s Green Bay campus last month, Patrick Parise instructed his Introduction to Ethics students to hold up their fingers: one if they’re confused about the lesson, 10 if they’ve mastered it. When met with a sea of “jazz hands,” he moves on to review the next chapter.  

The students will take their final exam several days later, after absorbing major ethical theories and key philosophers’ views in just eight weeks — half the length of the traditional 16-week college course. 

That’s because NWTC leaders have overhauled nearly every course in recent years, accelerating them to move twice as quickly. Administrators and instructors say the intensive pace helps students perform better and prevents them from dropping out when they face hardships outside of school.

NWTC is part of a growing national trend of colleges moving to shorter courses, but it’s one of fewer to offer eight-week classes almost exclusively. Many others have recently flirted with the idea by piloting a smaller share of shortened course options. 

“Everybody wants shortened learning. Nobody wants to be in a class for 16 weeks anymore. That’s not the pace of learning,” said Kathryn Rogalski, the college’s vice president of academic affairs and workforce development. “That faster pace, that more intensive time together, I think, is making the difference.”

The schedule at NWTC splits the traditional semester in half — for example, rather than taking four classes over the course of 16 weeks, a student would complete two speedier classes in the first eight weeks, then complete two more in the latter half of the semester. 

Proponents of the approach say juggling fewer classes allows students to focus better while some worry the brisk pace makes it easier to fall behind. 

The transition required a heavy lift, which came with challenges. Some students say the swift pace required a learning curve, and administrators acknowledge that starting a new slate of courses every eight weeks can be intense. 

But data suggests the switch has brought positive change to the 23,000-student college. Retention rates are up, meaning fewer students are dropping out. Students are earning higher grades on average. More are graduating on time. 

Parise, who has taught at NWTC since 2007, says his students engage more in shorter courses. In the 16-week model, he would have taught the ethics students once a week. Now he sees them twice weekly, which reduces the material students forget between classes and strengthens relationships, he said. 

“I find classes develop a far better sense of a learning community,” Parise said. “That’s huge … in the classes that I teach, creating an environment where students feel safe and comfortable and share ideas and ask questions — I don’t know that you can teach somebody ethics without having an environment like that.”

Shortening courses to limit ‘stopping out’

In 2018, NWTC leaders contemplated how they could reduce the number of students who were “stopping out,” or withdrawing from their studies with the intention of returning later, at the six-week mark. 

At least one in three NWTC students rely on federal financial assistance to afford college costs, and many have jobs and families — meaning nonacademic challenges can easily derail the semester.

College leaders wanted these students to be able to “take a break when they needed to, but then not have to be gone a whole semester or a whole year before they could start back,” Rogalski said.

Breaking the semester up into smaller pieces could help, they realized. National research and data from a few short courses they already offered suggested students persist better in accelerated courses. Meanwhile, the eight-week course model was beginning to gain momentum at community colleges in Texas, showing promising results. 

“If (students) are in week six of eight, they can figure out those last two weeks of, ‘How do I figure out that child care? How do I find some transportation?’ And they can finish the courses that they started,” Rogalski said. “If they’re in week six of 16 weeks, it’s really hard for 10 more weeks to figure out how to make it through.”

So NWTC leaders went all in. By 2020, they shifted roughly half of classes to the model. By 2021, 93%. The college exempted select courses, such as clinical rotations in hospitals for nursing students, but otherwise asked all instructors to get on board. 

That sweeping overhaul across nearly every program is vital to seeing results, but it’s a feat few colleges have accomplished, said Josh Wyner, vice president of education nonprofit The Aspen Institute.

“That’s really one of the things that we’ve appreciated about Northeast Wisconsin for years, is that they went to scale when they found something that worked,” Wyner said. “If the data show that students will benefit, they ask themselves the question … ‘Why would we continue to offer things in other formats?’”

Overhauling courses isn’t easy

Accelerating college courses comes with speed bumps. 

A sick student absent for a week misses double the instruction. Financial aid payment schedules must be retooled. Some high schoolers taking dual enrollment classes must manage the condensed schedule. Instructors must revamp their courses. 

Many colleges make the mistake of “simply trying to take 16 weeks of coursework and squeeze it into eight weeks,” Wyner said. 

“It can’t be the same class when it was in 16 weeks as it is in eight weeks. It has to look different,” Rogalski said. “I don’t think any college could be successful at this if they just shrunk their curriculum and just did exactly what they were doing, but did it twice as fast.”

When Nick Bengry transferred to NWTC from Lawrence University in Appleton to save money on tuition, it came with a learning curve. The university used a lengthier semester schedule, so he worried about the transition to more rigorous courses at the technical college. In the last year he’s found “some (classes) that are a little bit rougher” than others in the eight-week format, but feels like the workload ultimately “ends up being similar.” 

“Some classes like, the medical terminology class, were really fast-paced because of the way they were designed,” said Bengry, who plans to transfer to the University of Wisconsin-Madison next year and eventually become an emergency room doctor like his father.

He also finds it easier to schedule the requirements he needs for his biomedical engineering major while juggling a job at Bellin Health. 

“It makes it easier to fit the courses you need into your semester,” Bengry said. “Each course being only half the length means that if I need to fit a course into this semester, there’s more spots — it could be the first half or the second half.”

When students do struggle with their coursework, college staff has half the time to get them back on track before their class ends.

For example, in Kristin Sericati’s developmental reading and writing class, which helps students with lower literacy skills, “resource navigators” visit the classroom during the first week to meet one-on-one with every student and advertise services like tutoring or financial assistance. The college also has an “early alert” system that enables staff to intervene with helpful resources immediately if a student isn’t showing up to class or scores poorly on an assignment.

“A student is not waiting two weeks to have some sort of support that they need, which is now a quarter of their learning experience in that class,” Matt Petersen, NWTC’s associate vice president for ​​institutional research and strategic analytics, said. “We just can’t afford that. Our students can’t afford that.”

As they’ve worked out the kinks, NWTC leaders have returned some classes to 16 weeks. One microbiology class changed back when eight weeks wasn’t enough time to grow the bacteria needed for the students’ research. Now, about 86% of courses are accelerated, fewer than the share in 2022, and administrators say they’ll continue evaluating what works best. 

Boosting retention and graduation 

Seven years after leaders conceived the overhaul, data shows it’s paying off. 

Retention for full-time students, or the share of students who stay enrolled or finish their program from one year to the next, has shot up by 19 percentage points since 2018, when the college introduced eight-week courses. Now, 77% of full-time NWTC students continue in their studies, federal data shows. Nationwide, full-time community college students had an average retention rate of 63% in 2023, according to the National Student Clearinghouse. 

Retention rates for part-time students have shown smaller growth, rising from 56% to 59%. Part-time students regularly have lower retention rates than full-time.

In addition, the share of NWTC students who graduate within three years of enrolling has risen 3% to 46% since 2018. That’s well above the national average of 35% — and a tough data point to budge, according to The Aspen Institute.

Petersen said the change also correlates with an improvement in students’ grades, with hundreds more students now receiving a “C” or above in their courses. 

Plus, students who do have to temporarily withdraw are having an easier time getting back to their studies, said Sericati, the developmental writing instructor. 

“Before, if a student is in five classes and they come up against a life issue in week six and drop out of all of their classes, they now are on (academic) warning. They failed all of these credits,” Sericati said. “Now, if a student comes up against a life issue, they likely can complete those two courses that they’re in and not have that issue when they rejoin us again in another eight-week session.” 

As colleges like NWTC share their success with shorter classes, the model is building momentum, said Karen Stout, CEO of Achieving the Dream, a nonprofit focused on community college success. For example, Western Technical College in La Crosse began transitioning to seven-week courses in the summer of 2024. 

“It is such a relief, actually, to see that this made a positive difference,” Rogalski said. “Students who probably never imagined that they could be successful in college …  They haven’t aspired to complete a degree or go on to a university, and now we’re seeing that these students have this hope that they didn’t have before. And within eight weeks, they’re seeing that they have been successful.”

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus.

This college’s strategy for preventing dropouts? Classes half as long 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: 9 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Responding to an order from President Donald Trump, several federal agencies are seeking to block undocumented immigrants and some immigrants with legal status from accessing programs that provide literacy classes, career education, medical and mental health care, substance abuse treatment, free preschool and more. 

• A range of institutions — including colleges, government agencies and nonprofits — manage the affected programs.

• The order has caused widespread confusion about which organizations must check immigration status of the people they serve and how they could do that. Parts of the order appear to conflict with federal law. 

• Wisconsin joined 20 other states in a lawsuit challenging the new restrictions.

A group of federal agencies announced in July that at least 15 federally funded health, education and social service programs would exclude undocumented immigrants and some who are living in the country legally. 

Responding to President Donald Trump’s February executive order to “identify all federally funded programs currently providing financial benefits to illegal aliens and take corrective action,” the departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Justice and Labor listed programs that provide literacy classes, career education, medical and mental health care, substance abuse treatment, free preschool and more. 

In Wisconsin alone, the state Department of Justice estimates the new federal restrictions “put at risk more than $43 million each year in substance abuse and community mental health block grants that fund services in all 72 counties, 11 Tribal nations, and approximately 50 nonprofit organizations.” 

Wisconsin Watch contacted more than a dozen Wisconsin organizations, government agencies and national experts to learn about the new policy’s effects. But we found more questions than answers. Most are unsure who is subject to the new rules or how to comply. 

While we were reporting this story, Wisconsin joined 20 other states in a lawsuit challenging the new restrictions. That suit is still pending, but the parties have agreed to a deal that would delay most of the restrictions in those states until September. 

Confusion created by the guidance could have serious consequences, experts say. Some providers might delay or cancel programs unnecessarily out of an abundance of caution, while some immigrants may avoid services for which they remain eligible, such as health care and education.

While much remains unclear, here’s what we know so far. 

Which immigrants would be barred?

A 1996 law already prohibited certain immigrants from receiving 31 “federal public benefits,” including Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and cash assistance. The Trump administration’s new guidance bars the same immigrants from additional programs, according to the National Immigration Law Center.

Those ineligible include: 

• People with Temporary Protected Status (TPS). 
• People with nonimmigrant visas, such as student visas, work visas and U visas for survivors of serious crimes. 
• People who have pending applications for asylum or a U visa. 
• People granted Deferred Enforced Departure or deferred action. This includes Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients — those who entered the country as children.
• Undocumented immigrants.
• Lawfully present immigrants who don’t fall into categories below. 

People in the following groups would remain eligible:

• Lawful permanent residents (green card holders). 
• Refugees. 
• People who have been granted asylum or withholding of removal. 
• Certain survivors of domestic violence.
• Certain survivors of trafficking. 
• Certain Cuban and Haitian nationals.
• People residing under a Compact of Free Association with Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands.

Why the confusion? 

A range of institutions — including colleges, government agencies and nonprofits — manage the affected programs. Many did not previously check the immigration status of the people they serve; creating a process to do so may add costs and logistical challenges. It could prove especially daunting for organizations like soup kitchens and homeless shelters, which provide urgent services to people without easy access to documents. 

Meanwhile, entities that administer these federal funds include nonprofits and federally funded community health centers, which operate under laws that conflict with the guidance.

Health and Human Services said its settlement with the suing states “will permit the agency to consider, as appropriate, whether to provide additional information” about the restrictions it announced. 

How would the changes affect health care in Wisconsin?

Wisconsin has 16 federally qualified community health centers serving patients at 217 sites. They receive money from Congress to provide primary care to all, regardless of their ability to pay. Nationally, such clinics serve more than 32 million patients, making up 1 in 10 people in the United States and 1 in 5 people in rural America, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers. 

Aside from emergency rooms, they are often the only care options for undocumented immigrants or those with limited English proficiency, said Drishti Pillai, director of immigrant health policy at KFF, a national nonprofit providing information on health issues.

Federal law requiring those clinics to accept “all residents of the area served by the center” contradicts the Trump administration guidance. 

The national association said in a July 10 statement that it’s working with experts and legislators to understand the impact of the new rules and ensure centers “have the information and resources needed” to continue serving their patients. 

Access Community Health Centers, a nonprofit that provides medical, dental and mental health care at five south central Wisconsin clinics, will make “adjustments” if further federal guidance comes, CEO Ken Loving said.

“We don’t have the information we need to understand how this is going to impact us and how we can adapt to help our patients,” he said.

How would the changes affect education in Wisconsin?

The new restrictions target adult education services under the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act and career and technical education services under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. Community and technical colleges would likely face the brunt of the impact, but just how much is unclear. 

The Wisconsin Technical College System has followed 1997 guidance that said public benefit restrictions did not apply to such educational services, spokesperson Katy Petterson said. She’s not sure how the updated guidance might affect the system, which will “wait to learn the impact of the lawsuit.” 

If community-college-operated programs begin checking immigration status, ineligible immigrants may remain able to take federally funded classes through nonprofits that are subject to different rules. 

The nation’s 1,600 Head Start agencies, which provide free early childhood education and family support services for low-income families, fall under the restrictions announced in the Department of Health and Human Services notice. But the document doesn’t say whether Head Start staff must verify the immigration status of children, parents or both.

“It’s very ambiguous about who this impacts. … If you read the language, it’s 26-plus-ish pages of legal jargon, and it’s shifting,” said Jennie Mauer, executive director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association, which supports the state’s roughly 300 Head Start service sites.

One thing Mauer wants families to know: Children already enrolled in Head Start won’t be forced out. 

“We want to follow the rules, but Head Start is not required to redetermine eligibility,” Mauer said, noting it has never been required to do so in 60 years. She’s been telling the center directors to sit tight, even as worried parents ask questions. 

One entity that won’t start checking immigration status: K-12 schools. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that denying education to undocumented students violated their constitutional rights.

Must nonprofit providers start checking immigration status?

Probably not. The 1996 law restricting public benefits says nonprofit charities are not required to “determine, verify, or otherwise require proof of eligibility of any applicant for such benefits.”

At Literacy Network, a nonprofit offering a variety of free ESL and basic education classes in Madison, staff aren’t planning changes based on the new rule. 

“It could certainly impact many of our students in other areas of their lives and therefore their ability to participate in our programs, but not who we can serve,” spokesperson Margaret Franchino said.

Still, guidance from the Department of Education is vague. It states that the exemption for nonprofits is “narrowly crafted,” and “the Department does not interpret (it) to relieve states or other governmental entities … from the requirements to ensure that all relevant programs are in compliance.”

Ryan Graham is the homeless systems manager at Wisconsin Balance of State Continuum of Care, a nonprofit that supports agencies responding to homelessness across most of the state. 

As his agency discusses updates with partner agencies, it is preparing for an “increased administrative burden on already stretched staff.”

“We don’t yet know whether there will be delays caused by having to check or validate someone’s citizenship status, especially in emergency situations where time is critical,” Graham said. 

When do the new rules take effect?

The notices published in July took effect immediately, though some federal agencies said they would likely not enforce them for about a month. The Trump administration later agreed to pause enforcement until Sept. 3 in the 21 states that sued. 

The Department of Health and Human Services, meanwhile, has voluntarily stayed enforcement of its directive in all states until Sept. 10. 

What is the basis of legal challenges? 

The multistate lawsuit argues the Trump administration failed to follow proper procedures in implementation and that it can’t retroactively change the rules after states accept grants to administer programs. Requirements to check the immigration status of every person served would unreasonably burden program staff and possibly force programs to close, the states argue. 

States “will suffer continued, irreparable harm if forced to dramatically restructure their social safety nets and render them inaccessible to countless of the States’ most vulnerable residents,” the plaintiffs wrote.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Head Start groups nationwide had already sued before the Trump administration published new guidance. That suit argued staffing cuts, funding delays and bans on diversity efforts threatened to destabilize Head Start — a long-standing, congressionally mandated program. A hearing in that suit was held Aug. 5 on a request to temporarily block the Health and Human Services notice. 

What does the Trump administration say? 

The 1996 public benefits ban exempted federal programs that offered services available to all people on the grounds that they were “necessary for the protection of life and safety.” 

Trump calls that exemption too broad. 

“A surge in illegal immigration, enabled by the previous Administration, is siphoning dollars and essential services from American citizens while state and local budgets grow increasingly strained,” the White House said.

Citing studies from congressional committees and groups that seek to severely curtail immigration, the White House argues that allowing broad access to federal resources incentivizes illegal immigration and costs U.S. taxpayers. The recent federal spending package also eliminated access to Medicaid, Medicare and food stamps for some authorized immigrants, including refugees and asylees.

Trump ran for office on a promise to carry out mass deportations, and the bureaucratic moves appear to be a new frontier in that immigration crackdown. Since he took office, the administration has raided stores and workplaces, built new detention centers and attempted to shut down the asylum process at the southern border. It has also urged many immigrants without permanent legal status, including DACA recipients, to self-deport. 

Why does this policy change matter?

Experts worry the confusion about the new rule could have a chilling effect, leading even eligible immigrants to stop using services. 

Pillai of KFF noted that the restrictions on community health centers, alongside congressionally approved changes “that limit health coverage to a smaller group of lawfully present immigrants,” will likely make immigrant families even more reluctant to seek health care and social services. 

The changes “may increase their reliance on emergency room care, which can be more costly in the long term,” she added. 

Graham, the homeless systems manager, believes the Trump change will create “a direct barrier to safe and stable shelter for undocumented individuals and mixed-status families” and qualified immigrants or citizens who “may not have identification or the means to attain identification after fleeing a dangerous situation or crisis.”

It could also prompt administrators of some programs not covered by the rule to start screening participants as a precaution, or shut down programs to avoid screening challenges.

That has happened before. When Trump issued an executive order in January saying the administration would no longer “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support” gender-affirming health care for people under 19, some providers stopped offering those services even though state law protected them. 

Likewise, a 2023 KFF study found that in states that institute abortion bans, the majority of health care providers say they worry about accidentally running afoul of the law.

Braden Goetz, who worked for more than 20 years in the U.S. Department of Education and now works as a senior policy adviser at the New America Foundation’s Center on Education and Labor, said it’s unusual for federal guidance to be so sparse and ambiguous. 

“​​Maybe that’s the intention: to confuse people and chill services to people who are not citizens or not legal permanent residents, and scare people,” Goetz said.

Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success in Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Sreejita Patra is statehouse reporting intern for Wisconsin Watch.

Trump is trying to exclude immigrants from many federally funded programs. Here’s what it means for Wisconsin. 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: 4 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Video game quality assurance testers at Middleton-based Raven Software have ratified their first union contract, more than three years after launching the first union at a major U.S. gaming studio. 
  
• Testers are some of the lowest-paid employees in the video gaming industry.
  
• The deal comes after Microsoft purchased Activision Blizzard, Raven Software’s parent company. Activision had been accused of trying to bust the union. Microsoft agreed to stay neutral on the union. 
  
• Organizers said they learned plenty during the challenging years of contract negotiations.

Video game testers at Middleton-based Raven Software have ratified their first union contract, more than three years after making local and national headlines by launching the first union at a major U.S. studio. 

Ratified on Aug. 4, the contract gives employees a 10% raise while limiting mandatory overtime and preserving remote work options. 

The deal is the latest development in a saga involving some of the video game industry’s lowest-paid workers. It comes after Microsoft purchased Activision Blizzard, Raven Software’s parent company, leaving the roughly two dozen testers to negotiate with one of the world’s largest tech companies.

“I think we pretty much got everything we aimed for,” said Erin Hall, a seven-year veteran at Raven and one of two workers who negotiated the contract. As a quality assurance tester, she checks for bugs in the blockbuster Call of Duty franchise and works with developers to fix them.

An Activision Blizzard spokesperson declined to comment but directed Wisconsin Watch to a web page discussing Microsoft’s labor principles. 

Studios nationwide employ testers to play new video games and identify problems before release.

Raven’s testers make around $21 an hour, and they’re frequently required to work overtime in weeks-long “crunch time” stretches ahead of a game’s release. The volatile nature of their industry prompted the workers to organize. 

The testers walked off the job to protest layoffs of a dozen colleagues in December 2021. They announced the formation of a union the next month — the first at a AAA studio that makes high-budget games. The Game Workers Alliance represents the workers, organized with support from Communications Workers of America. 

Lessons from three years of negotiating

For Hall and fellow bargaining committee member Autumn Prazuch, contract negotiations required intensive lessons on bargaining and labor laws. Neither had joined a union before launching their own.

“We had no idea it would be this difficult, or that it would take three-and-a-half years, or that it’d be this stressful, that we would be giving up so many nights and weekends,” Hall said. “We felt like it was the right thing to do, and we did it, and we learned as we went.”

The process took about twice as long as a norm that has grown longer in recent years. Newly unionized workers between 2020 to 2023 spent an average of 17 months negotiating their first contract, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis.

The contract negotiations overlapped with a change of ownership: Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard. In 2022, while waiting for regulators to approve the deal, Microsoft committed to remaining neutral on the workers’ unionization efforts. 

That was after Activision took steps organizers called union busting, including withholding raises granted to nonunion workers and reorganizing Raven’s staff in what the union argued was an attempt to dilute its support ahead of the election.

Prazuch said negotiating with leaders at Activision and Microsoft made her feel like “a little fish in a big pond.”

“You’re sitting across from tech billionaires, and this is a huge company … and we’re 19 people at Raven QA in Middleton, Wisconsin,” she said. 

But in that process, Prazuch discovered strengths she didn’t know she had. 

“I’ve learned that I have more determination than I initially thought, that my voice is louder than I thought it was,” Prazuch said. 

She also learned that the same focus that helps her identify glitches in games allowed her to flag subtle wording changes that would shift the terms of the deal. 

The deal they reached limits mandatory overtime to half the weeks in a quarter, and it gives testers the flexibility to choose their schedules when working overtime. Workers who currently work remotely can continue to do so under a contract that also promises 10% raises over the two-year contract period, with potential for additional raises. 

Hall said she’d encourage other workers to start unions — if they’re in it for the long haul. 

“I would not want to take it back for anything, but it was really hard work,” Hall said. “If people want to unionize at their workplace, just know it’s going to be really difficult, and you have to be committed to seeing it through to the end.”

More video game workers are unionizing

While Microsoft’s promise to not oppose employees’ union efforts contrasts with many other major companies, the process has still had moments of controversy. Communications Workers of America, for instance, criticized Microsoft this summer when it announced plans to lay off around 9,000 workers across the company. That included its gaming division, where it halted production of several games.

Raven’s quality assurance team escaped those layoffs, along with a previous round, Hall said. Having a contract doesn’t guarantee the testers won’t be laid off, but it requires the company to offer notice and bargain over severance and benefits.

Keith Fuller, a former Raven Software employee who is now a Madison-based workplace culture consultant, called collective bargaining “one of the few levers that game developers have” as video game companies tighten their belts and as the Trump administration redefines workers’ rights.

“The power imbalance that’s inherent in capitalism shows up very easily in game development,” Fuller said. “I think that this is something that will benefit workers across the industry.”

The organizing trend comes as state lawmakers are exploring ways to encourage video game companies to move to Wisconsin or expand their in-state operations.

In the years since Raven workers unionized, workers at some other major studios have followed their lead. Communications Workers of America says it now represents 2,000 video game workers at Microsoft. 

“When we started (our union campaign), we were kind of ambitiously hoping that there’d be anyone that would do this too, and now there’s so many,” Hall said. 

These Wisconsin video game workers were first to unionize at a major U.S. studio. Three years later, they have a contract. 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: 3 minutes

In a county where one in four adults read at or below a third-grade level, Literacy Services of Wisconsin is doing what it can to help break down adult literacy barriers. 

“We are here to provide educational opportunities for those who maybe either didn’t feel engaged in traditional classrooms or are just looking to improve their skills now,” said Holly McCoy, executive director of Literacy Services of Wisconsin.

On July 16, the organization opened its new headquarters, at 1737 N. Palmer St., in the Brewer’s Hill neighborhood. Literacy Services provides free help to Milwaukee-area adults looking to continue their education, including GED prep, help in the transition to college and more.

More space brings bigger opportunities

The organization’s new headquarters includes several classrooms, space for virtual learners and a lounge. 

Students can learn directly from Milwaukee Area Technical College professors teaching on site in the new dedicated MATC classroom.

MATC works with Literacy Services to help students transition from “community to college,” McCoy said. Classes typically build the necessary literacy and numeracy skills to succeed in college courses. Last year, 63 students transitioned from Literacy Services to a post-secondary school.

“We are kind of known for GED, whereas, like when people think of MATC, they think college,” McCoy said. “We kind of create the bridge.”

Literacy Services is also raising funds to develop a GED testing room with four stations. As the organization works to raise funds, it did receive good news recently as a $235,000 freeze in federal funding was lifted. 

Frozen funds had presented major challenge

Literacy Services was one of many adult education programs waiting on federal funds frozen by the Trump administration. The Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, which supports adult education programs, covers about 10% of Literacy Services’ budget.

The Trump administration had frozen nearly $7 million in federal funding for adult education programs in Wisconsin, impacting Literacy Services of Wisconsin and MATC. It was announced Friday, July 25, that the Trump administration had released $6.8 billion in frozen federal education funding.

McCoy said before the funds became available that losing them would have a “tremendous impact” on her organization’s programming.

“We’ve thought about these things and we definitely don’t want to see a disturbance to our students,” McCoy said.

‘Open to the community’

As the headquarters moves from downtown to Brewer’s Hill, McCoy looks forward to growing roots in a more accessible and centralized location. 

“I love the fact that we are in a neighborhood,” McCoy said.

Ray Hill, executive director of Historic King Drive Business Improvement District 8, is excited the new center is in her district. 

“This location matters. It’s not tucked away. It’s in one of Milwaukee’s most historic and visible neighborhoods. It’s accessible, it’s walkable, and, most importantly, it’s open to the community,” Hill said. “Having invested in partners like LSW here creates an effect.”

Mayor Cavalier Johnson said the new location opens doors for Milwaukee adults who want to grow, learn and thrive. 

“Here in our city, we believe that it’s never too late to finish your education, to earn a diploma, or even to pick up a brand-new skill,” Johnson said. “Literacy Services is making all of that possible, and I’m proud that Milwaukee is a place where opportunity doesn’t stop, it actually expands. It grows.”

---

Alex Klaus is the education solutions reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.

New center helps Literacy Services of Wisconsin expand adult education in Milwaukee 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

• A provision of President Donald Trump’s big bill creates Workforce Pell grants, available to students who demonstrate “exceptional financial need” and lack a graduate degree. 

• The new grants can be used to pay for qualifying workforce training that can be completed in less than a semester.

• The grants are supposed to be available starting in fall 2026, but questions loom about whether the U.S. Department of Education will be ready. 

• Tech college leaders say a range of people could benefit, including working parents and the formerly incarcerated. They say the grants may lead to new training opportunities that help plug persistent labor shortages.

The federal budget bill that passed this month has drawn much attention for polarizing Medicaid work requirements, cuts to food aid and new funding for immigration enforcement. But one item tucked into the lengthy bill has been on bipartisan wish lists for more than a decade. 

It allows eligible Americans to use Pell grants, the federal government’s largest grant program for undergraduates, to pay for shorter workforce training courses than what previously qualified. 

Such courses could train a range of workers, including welders, truck drivers, emergency medical technicians and cybersecurity analysts, though exactly which programs will be eligible for funding hasn’t been decided. 

In Wisconsin, where many such jobs regularly go unfilled, proponents say the grants could set low-income residents on a path to better jobs, while also aiding the employers and the communities that rely on those workers. Meanwhile, a small group of critics say the new program could lead some students down a dead end road of low wages. 

Who qualifies for the grants? 

Like existing grants, the new Workforce Pell grants are available to students who demonstrate “exceptional financial need.” Funding will vary based on the number of hours or credits of the training, hovering below the maximum annual Pell grant of $7,395, according to Jobs for the Future, a national nonprofit focused on education and workforce issues. 

Unlike the existing grants, Workforce Pell is open to people who already have a bachelor’s degree, as well as those without. People who hold graduate or professional degrees are still barred. Students apply by filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

The grants, which can be used for qualifying courses of eight to 14 weeks and are expected to serve 100,000 students a year, are supposed to be available starting in fall 2026. Jobs for the Future calls that timeline “aggressive” and warns that the Department of Education, which the Trump administration has sought to dismantle, may need more time to implement the program. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the administration may follow through with plans to fire nearly 1,400 education department employees, with plans to assign duties to other agencies.

Leaders at the state’s 16 technical colleges have pushed for such a Pell grant expansion for years, said Layla Merrifield, president of the Wisconsin Technical College System.

“It’s a good idea to expand access to workforce credentials and help entry-level employees who are trying to join a career and get themselves into a better place economically,” Merrifield said. “This could be really important for moving folks into careers.”

Boost for in-demand jobs like truck driving

The funding could allow tech colleges to train more students for in-demand jobs like truck driving, Merrifield said. Wisconsin truck drivers earn a median salary just over $50,000, and Wisconsin employers are projected to hire more than 6,000 of them in each of the next seven years. That puts truck drivers at the top of the state’s “Hot Jobs” list. 

But training those drivers is expensive, Merrifield said, so colleges can’t necessarily afford to enroll more students. 

“You start to see employers starting their own (commercial driver’s license) programs because there’s such a tremendous need for folks with this credential out in the industry,” Merrifield said. 

Roger Stanford saw those challenges during his time as vice president of instruction at Chippewa Valley Technical College, where students had to pay around $5,000 up front for truck driving training, no matter their income. 

Thirty-two states directly fund short-term credential programs by supporting students or schools, but Wisconsin isn’t one of them, according to a report by higher education consulting firm HCM Strategists.

Students in some programs can apply for federal student loans, and all students can apply for scholarships if their college offers them. 

“When you’re coming out of poverty or you’re a single parent, it’s just impossible to come up with the cash. And so we were really limiting how many people could go into that program,” Stanford said. 

Still, some experts worry about using federal aid to fund such programs. A 2016 analysis by the left-leaning think tank New America found two in five adults with a short-term credential didn’t have jobs, and half of those who did earned $30,000 a year or less. 

“Obtaining only a short-term certificate is not a likely vehicle towards economic mobility for the average student,” the authors wrote. Earnings were particularly low for Black and Latino adults. 

The Workforce Pell legislation requires programs to meet wage and employment benchmarks to qualify, but experts disagree about whether that sufficiently protects students and taxpayers. 

More options for working parents and ex-incarcerated

A 2011 experiment previews the potential effects of the new grants. In the pilot program, the U.S. Department of Education offered Pell grants for short-term training for students who wouldn’t otherwise qualify and compared their outcomes to those without grants. The study found people who were offered the grants were more likely to enroll in and complete training, but long-term wages and employment rates were similar across the groups. 

Chippewa Valley Technical College was part of that pilot. Suddenly, Stanford said, more students started signing up to become truck drivers. 

“It makes people go, ‘Oh my gosh, if I can get financial aid for this, I’ll go into truck driving.’ It helps you fill those programs which are all tied to good jobs,” Stanford said. 

Today, Stanford is president of Western Technical College in La Crosse. Western Tech doesn’t train truck drivers, but the college predicts a handful of its programs will be eligible for the new grants. That could include training in welding, emergency medical services, auto repair, advanced manufacturing and dental care.

Workforce Pell grants will be especially helpful for adults returning to school while working or taking care of children, Stanford said.

“We probably all know some people that just can’t commit to a two-year program right now … Or they look at a two-year program and say, ‘I’ll take three credits each term.’ That puts them on a trajectory of five or six years, and they never finish,” Stanford said. Data show that students who attend school part-time are less likely to graduate than their full-time counterparts. 

“If we can put them on a trajectory to get them a credential in eight or 10 weeks, people can get their life around it,’” Stanford said, like by tapping relatives to watch their kids for a couple months. 

“They can say, ‘Wow, this is going to be hard, but I know at the end of it, there’s 24 bucks an hour, and I can do that,’” Stanford said. 

Another group that can benefit from access to shorter courses: recently incarcerated people.

“When you’re coming out of jail, you don’t have two years,” Stanford said. “If we could turn around and say, ‘We can take you right from the jail and give you 10 weeks and put you into a job that has life-sustaining wages, that helps (lower) recidivism.”

Pathways in construction, IT, auto repair and more 

The new grants will encourage colleges to expand their short-term training opportunities to fill other workforce gaps by parceling longer academic programs into stand-alone “stackable” courses, which would let students earn a credential, get a better job and then decide whether to pursue a technical diploma or associate degree, Stanford said. 

That model could work well for most of the building trades, Stanford said. About 15 students finished Western Tech’s yearlong program in building construction and cabinetmaking last year, but local construction companies need about five times that, Stanford said. He estimates a “modularized” approach could prepare 60 to 80 students to start working sooner.

Stanford also sees promise for fields like information technology, where the college could offer stand-alone courses in cybersecurity, programming or networking. The same could apply in machining, auto repair or mechatronics, an automation-related field that combines multiple types of engineering. Colleges could prepare students to start in operator jobs making $40,000 or $50,000 a year, with the potential to double that pay after earning a degree, Stanford said.

“I think in the next decade, you’re going to see probably less emphasis on diplomas and associate degrees and more on direct job credentials and certifications that get people (on the job) quicker, and then pathways to associate degrees,” Stanford said. “This is a really, really big opportunity for us … I think it really will help change the economic mobility of so many people that are struggling.”

Filling rural EMT gaps

The grants could help Wisconsin address some of its most serious labor shortages, including in health care. Rural Wisconsin communities have struggled for years to maintain adequate emergency medical services. 

Western Tech trains students to work as emergency medical technicians, providing life-saving care and transporting patients to hospitals. The median EMT salary in Wisconsin is just over $43,000, according to federal data, though many rural departments rely on volunteers. 

Western Tech’s EMT program trained more than 100 EMTs last year. The region could use far more. 

“Say we offer four sections a year right now. We could easily offer eight, and they would all have work, because there’s just so much demand,” Stanford said. 

Sometimes rural fire departments or hospitals wait months for new recruits to start training because the college can’t afford to run a class for just a couple students. Stanford expects the new grants will encourage more students to join the field.

“That’ll help across the whole country,” Stanford said. “EMT (training) is needed everywhere.”

Wisconsin lawmakers have also sought to fill the gap. The budget Gov. Tony Evers signed earlier this month includes $3.5 million to reimburse tech colleges for emergency medical services training.

Other Pell changes off the table for now

An earlier version of Trump’s bill would have allowed Workforce Pell grants to be used at unaccredited training providers, stirring fears that unscrupulous entities might take advantage. 

Lawmakers removed that provision, leaving existing accreditation requirements in place. 

Meanwhile, other headline-grabbing Pell proposals didn’t make the cut. House Republicans previously proposed raising the credits required to receive the maximum award and making students enrolled less than half-time ineligible.

Merrifield, the Wisconsin Technical College System president, was relieved to see those provisions removed from the final bill. She estimates around 7,000 students would have lost all aid and thousands more would have seen their aid amounts cut. 

“While Workforce Pell would be helpful on the margins, ending part-time Pell would be tremendously harmful to technical colleges and our students,” Merrifield said. 

Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success in Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus.

New financial aid for career training: What to know in Wisconsin 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 Trump administration has frozen $715 million in previously appropriated adult education funds nationwide, including $7 million in Wisconsin. 

• That’s left program staff scrambling to figure out how they’ll continue providing free services that prepare people for the workforce, such as helping people learn English and educating people in prisons and jails. 

• Education leaders say the cuts could kneecap efforts to grow Wisconsin’s thin workforce.

• Attorney General Josh Kaul has joined a coalition that is suing the federal government over a freeze he calls “unconstitutional, unlawful, and arbitrary.”

On a recent Wednesday evening, a handful of adults sat around a table in a classroom at Madison College’s Goodman South Campus. They chatted about the week, their plans for the weekend and, finally, the day’s discussion question: Are human rights universal? 

The Literacy Network’s “Transitions” class is designed as a final step for immigrants with advanced English skills, preparing them for college or careers. Students spend a year learning to set goals, write resumes and interview for jobs. On this day, the lesson was about finding reliable sources for their next big assignment: a college-style oral presentation on a historical human rights struggle.

The Madison-based adult education nonprofit has surpassed many of its goals in recent years, with particularly high enrollment in Transitions. It scored a $72,000 annual federal grant to grow the program from 100 to 150 students.

But in June, the organization learned the money wasn’t coming.  

On June 30, the Trump administration said it was withholding the nearly $7 million Wisconsin was previously set to receive for adult education — threatening programs that help adults complete high school, learn English and improve their literacy skills, among other services. 

If the funding isn’t distributed, the shortfall could shrink remedial programs in a state where around 340,000 adults don’t have a high school diploma, Wisconsin providers warn.

“Reducing funding from programs that have been proven to be effective — and impact not just individuals but whole communities — is really short-sighted,” said Literacy Network executive director Robin Ryan.

The administration has frozen $715 million in adult education funds nationwide, its largest blow to community college program funding to date. It’s part of $6.8 billion in total federal education funding frozen while the administration ensures “taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the President’s priorities,” a U.S. Department of Education memo said. 

While the majority of funding on hold is for K-12 education, federal dollars make up a greater share of the adult education budgets. That’s left staff scrambling to figure out how they’ll continue to provide their free services, which range from helping people learn English to educating those incarcerated in prisons and jails. 

Sixteen technical colleges and seven community organizations in Wisconsin have received federal funding through a competitive process for adult education and literacy programs. More than 17,000 people attended these institutions for services during the 2023-24 school year, many of whom are people of color or are from low-income backgrounds.

“To me, that’s something that we should be doubling down on and tripling down on, not cutting funding,” said Wisconsin Technical College System President Layla Merrifield.

Wisconsin leaders are fighting to get the promised funds. On Monday, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, joined 23 other states in suing the Trump administration, calling the freeze “unconstitutional, unlawful, and arbitrary.” 

“The Wisconsin Technical College System Board has already begun canceling professional development activities, and staff layoffs may soon follow, further disrupting services,” Kaul said in a statement. “This sudden funding loss leaves Wisconsin’s technical colleges facing budget shortfalls that threaten the stability of these essential programs.” 

Trump officials allege ‘dismal’ results

Funding fears began swirling in the adult education community months ago. In early May, President Donald Trump sent Congress a fiscal year 2026 budget outline that called for the elimination of grants under the Adult Education Family Literacy Act, asserting the funding produces “dismal” results. Organizations braced for the possibility of not receiving federal funding beyond the next year. 

“K-12 outcomes will improve as education returns to the states, which would make remedial education for adults less necessary,” the administration’s discretionary funding request read. “The budget redirects resources to programs that more directly prepare students for meaningful careers.”

The shock came two months later, when Trump’s administration withheld the money adult education providers had budgeted for the upcoming year — funding already approved under the Biden administration. 

Ryan of the Literacy Network felt déjà vu when she heard the news.

The Trump administration in April informed her it was canceling a different previously approved grant: $74,000 to help prepare students with green cards to take the U.S. citizenship test. 

“It used to be you would always fight for the next budget, the next grant, but once you got a grant, you knew you had it,” Ryan said. “Since this administration started …we’re in a new climate.”

Monday’s lawsuit argues Trump officials are violating the law in refusing to spend the money. The administration has not indicated whether it will eventually release the frozen funds. 

Ryan isn’t holding her breath, and she’s preparing for the worst. 

Adult education departments at technical colleges receive most of the adult education dollars allocated to Wisconsin. They are being  “extra tight” with their budgets, said Peter Snyder, associate dean of adult education at Moraine Park Technical College. Snyder expects community organizations — like Literacy Network — to feel the impacts of cuts even more because more of their work centers on adult education. 

“With our Technical College System colleges, we’re doing a lot of other work, so for us, it’s more of a matter of managing what we have,” Snyder said. “My heart goes out to those other programs that are doing really great work that are solely reliant on that funding.”

Milwaukee Area Technical College runs the state’s largest adult education program, serving more than 12,000 students between the 2020 and 2022 school years. It’s currently missing $800,000 in promised grant dollars, plus around $500,000 in other funds that were contingent on the federal money.  

“The loss of (this) funding would result in a significant negative impact for supplying the region’s talent pipeline and would negatively affect our students’ economic mobility and career success,” MATC spokesperson Darryll Fortune said in an emailed statement. 

Worsening workforce woes

Education leaders say the cuts could kneecap efforts to grow Wisconsin’s thin workforce.

In the 2023-24 school year, the most recently available data, more than 2,700 Wisconsin adult education students earned a high school equivalency credential, and over 2,500 enrolled in college or workforce training, preparing them for jobs for which they may not have otherwise qualified. 

Literacy Network associate director Jennifer Peterson said programs like the Transitions class are a wise investment. 

Recipients of these federal dollars must test students throughout their studies and report how many achieved at least one of the benchmarks the federal government tracks, which include raising scores by approximately two grade levels, earning a high school equivalency or enrolling in postsecondary education. 

Of the 77 Transitions students tested over the past three years, 71% showed that type of improvement. 

The funding freeze unfolds as Wisconsin employers struggle to find workers qualified for jobs in many key industries. 

“This is definitely not a case of not aligning with the priorities, because the priority is labor, and that’s what this work is doing,” Peterson said. “Wisconsin needs more workers and will continue to need more workers.”

Anna Mykhailova, a cardiologist who fled Ukraine after the 2022 Russian invasion, landed a new job after taking the Transitions class. 

Licensing laws make it complicated for many foreign-trained medical professionals to practice in the United States, so Mykhailova took what she learned in the class and became a phlebotomist — someone trained to draw blood — at SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison. 

She later moved up to a role as a cardiac sonographer, taking ultrasounds with the skills she’d used as a doctor in Ukraine. Literacy Network, where she still attends tutoring to improve her English, awarded her scholarships to cover the cost of her board certification exams.  

Mykhailova’s husband Sasha Druzhyna, who worked as an anesthesiologist in Ukraine, took the same class. In fall, he’ll start a graduate program at the Milwaukee School of Engineering to become a perfusionist, a specialist who operates a heart-lung machine during open-heart surgery. 

That class won’t expand without the frozen funds, and Literacy Network has already cut some classes. 

Message to public: Please help 

Trump’s move to withhold already-appropriated funding surprised even those who have seen priorities ebb and flow under previous presidents.  

“This has historically, for many decades, been very stable funding that has strong bipartisan support. It has been, up until now, pretty outside of political winds blowing,” Peterson said. “It’s a big change in our field.”

Staff at Neighborhood House of Milwaukee had already found a way to do without these funds before the news came down. The nonprofit offers ESL and citizenship classes for around 150 immigrants each year, many of them refugees from the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Latin America. 

The organization previously received a $75,000 annual federal adult education grant, but staff didn’t submit all the necessary paperwork when the latest applications were due, so it wasn’t expecting a fresh round of funding. The organization instead turned to private donors and other grants — a shift others who long depended on federal funding may soon need to make, too. 

Liliane McFarlane, who manages the organization’s International Education program, said the organization raised enough to replace the federal funding for a year. 

The Literacy Network is bracing for the possibility of additional federal cuts. It relies on three other federal grants, with about 15% of its $2.6 million budget coming from Washington.   

“We consider all of that to be endangered,” Ryan said.

For now, Ryan said, the goal is just to keep all programs afloat and hope so the organization can scale up during a future presidential administration.  

“We are hoping that this is a Trump administration duration of difficulty,” she said. “We are very much reaching out to the public and saying, ‘Please help us. These are important, effective programs that affect the whole community and help people thrive.’”

Natalie Yahr and Miranda Dunlap report on pathways to success in Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus.

Trump funding freeze threatens programs that prepare thousands for jobs in Wisconsin 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: 2 minutes

If you live in northeast Wisconsin, I want to hear about your experience forging your path to meaningful, family-sustaining work.

But first, let me introduce myself. I’m Miranda Dunlap, and I’m Wisconsin Watch’s new reporter covering pathways to success in the region. That means I’ll write stories about how local people prepare themselves for their dream jobs and what roadblocks stand in the way. 

I’m a native Michigander, and I previously spent two years reporting on community colleges and K-12 education for Houston Landing in Texas. I’ve spent countless hours learning about the experiences of people pursuing affordable education and training to change the trajectory of their life. That was after community college opened doors in my own career. Completing a year’s worth of credits at my local institution helped me afford enrolling at a university and shaved thousands of dollars off my total student debt. 

I’m Wisconsin Watch’s second pathways to success reporter but the first journalist hired specifically to serve northeast Wisconsin. My colleague Natalie Yahr covers pathways from a statewide perspective, and I’m focused on reporting for Brown, Calumet, Door, Kewaunee, Manitowoc, Marinette, Oconto, Outagamie, Shawano and Winnebago counties. Based in Green Bay, I hope people will see me as more than a trusted source of information, but also their neighbor — someone who will ensure Wisconsin Watch’s work reflects the perspectives of local residents.

My goal is to produce journalism that confronts your challenges, highlights resources and opportunities for economic mobility and answers your burning questions.

You can expect my stories to explore barriers that prevent them from finding sustainable employment, and I’ll examine whether leaders and higher education institutions are investing in solutions and tools to overcome these obstacles. I’ll do it all with an eye toward the unique identities of northeast Wisconsin communities. 

As I dig into this beat, I’m particularly interested in hearing from people with nontraditional routes to the workforce — or those who face added barriers to success. That might include incarcerated or formerly incarcerated people, those from low-income families, folks living in rural, under-resourced communities or workers returning to education to switch careers. 

I hope you’ll point me in the right direction by answering some of my questions. 

What do you think I need to know about northeast Wisconsin to understand the challenges that people and communities here face when it comes to economic stability and mobility?

What are your career dreams — to fulfill your own professional goals and support your family? What, if anything, is standing in the way? 

Have you attended a community or technical college in the region, such as Northeast Wisconsin Technical College or Fox Valley Technical College? If so, what was your experience?

Are you a local employer struggling to find skilled workers to fill your jobs? What would help?

Do you know of an organization or institution successfully guiding people toward the skills and information they need to succeed? 

Your insights and experiences will shape my reporting. You can share them with me by filling out this form.

Miranda covers pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin in partnership with Open Campus. Reach her via email at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

Help us report on local workforce challenges and opportunities in northeast Wisconsin 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.