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Warren Pickar teaches an agribusiness class in the Integrated Technology Center on the Western Technical La Crosse campus. WTC is one of eight technical colleges that recently gained authority to offer an associate of arts degree. 

A significant expansion of transfer degree options between technical colleges and the University of Wisconsin System marks a major shift in the state’s higher education landscape and may lead more residents to pursue college degrees.

The UW Board of Regents last month approved associate degree programs at eight of Wisconsin’s 16 technical colleges, a move UW has historically resisted and just last year said threatened the existence of some of its branch campuses.

The Regents’ approval signals much closer collaboration between the two systems that some have seen as competing against each other for a shrinking pool of students to enroll.

It also brings Wisconsin more in line with many other states by creating a seamless system of transferability between the two systems, Technical College System President Morna Foy said. That’s important in a rapidly shifting economy where more and more of the workforce goes back to school at some point to reskill or supplement their education.

Associate degree programs are the most common stepping stone for students to go on to a four-year university and earn a bachelor’s degree. The mechanics of degree transfer play an important role in where students enroll, how much debt they accumulate and how well Wisconsin can address its workforce needs.

Because only a handful of technical colleges had UW’s blessing to offer the programs until recently, many students transferred to a non-UW institution where their credits were accepted. Technical college system data showed more than half of its students who transferred in 2019-20 enrolled in a Wisconsin private college or an out-of-state school, especially ones near the Minnesota and Illinois borders.

“That’s not what we’d like to see happen,” Foy said. “We want to keep more of our talent right here. This is another tool and another way for us to do that.”

Beyond retaining current students, the new programs may also help attract new ones. Technical colleges largely don’t see themselves in competition with UW campuses to fill seats. The average age of a tech student is 27, and most attend part-time. Some of them struggle to commit to a four-year degree but having a two-year option on a campus that fits their needs “might be the difference-maker,” Foy said.

Another way in which doors will be opened: Students taking general education courses at a technical college that doesn’t offer an associate degree program have to pay out of pocket because they aren’t eligible for financial aid and veteran’s benefits, Foy said. Now that financial barrier will be removed.

A handful of technical colleges, including Madison Area Technical College, have already offered associate degree programs for many years due to state law or approval received from the Regents years ago. In reviewing those programs, along with the transferability of dozens of individual courses, the UW System saw an opportunity to increase access even more, said Carleen Vande Zande, who works in the UW System’s office of academic programs.

“It was a historic insight and we really moved the needle on our thinking that we can put this together,” she said. “We can make this happen for every technical college student. We can increase access through liberal arts transfer.”

The Regents are slated to consider the last batch of transfer degree programs this summer, Vande Zande said. If approved, that would mean all state technical colleges offer associate degree programs.

A Republican-authored bill introduced last year may have also helped push the UW System in this direction.

The bill, which received a hearing in an Assembly committee but not in the Senate, would have eliminated a longstanding requirement that technical colleges receive approval from the Regents before starting associate degree programs on their campuses.

UW officials warned last spring that the bill would allow technical colleges to operate in isolation and add duplicative courses at the expense of UW branch campuses, some of which are located near technical colleges and most of which primarily offer two-year associate degrees.

That’s not the case with the Regents’ recent approvals, System spokesperson Ethan Schuh said. The current setup encourages collaboration while also holding the two systems accountable to each other.

Vande Zande suggested the new transfer options may actually boost enrollment at branch campuses because of a System-wide restructuring in 2018 that gave the branches the ability to offer bachelor’s degrees.

How are the new pathways playing out? It’s too early to say for most of the campuses. But Gateway Technical College, which received approval last fall to offer associate’s degree programs with UW-Parkside, may offer some clues.

Gateway President Bryan Albrecht said many students on his Kenosha, Racine and Elkhorn campuses showed a strong interest in liberal arts programs. But UW System for many years “didn’t have a whole lot of interest” in granting Gateway authority, he said. The lack of a local option led some students to enroll at an Illinois community college instead.

“That has all changed,” Albrecht said. “I was really pleased when (UW-Parkside) Chancellor (Deborah) Ford got behind the initiative.”

The transfer program will launch next school year, Albrecht said. More than 80 students have enrolled so far.

Alissa Krueger and daughter Nora, 2, create chalk drawings on the sidewalk in front of their Madison house Friday. The artwork might be short-lived, with a chance of showers or thunderstorms through the weekend and into Monday before sunshine returns on Tuesday.

Cycling friends David Ghilardi, left, Keith Kosbau, center, and Mike Hart take in the changing autumn scenery during an afternoon ride Monday through the UW Arboretum in Madison. This week will feel a little more like autumn than the summery temperatures in the 80s seen last week, with highs in the low 70s predicted for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. 

Gabrielle Javier-Cerulli, a community artist with the Madison Public Library’s The Bubbler project and Dane Arts Mural Arts, adds tiles to a mosaic project outside the Dane County Juvenile Shelter Home on the East Side. Using tiles hand-colored by students at the home, the project is a collaboration among the artist, students and staff, and features a "waves" theme designed by the students to illustrate the ripple effect people can have on each other.

Walter Weber makes liberal use of Schuster's Farm's dried corn kernel pit, one of several attractions at the farm that's a longtime Halloween season destination for Dane County families.

Kylie Steiner helps her son Atlas navigate the Schuster's Farm pumpkin patch in Deerfield on Wednesday.

A group of students on a Thursday field trip from DeForest High School watch as local actress Victoria Mecozzi, holding a Blue Star Service Banner, portrays Jessie Smith during the Wisconsin Veterans Museum's Talking Spirits Cemetery Tours: Wisconsin Women at War at Forest Hill Cemetery. Smith, who died in 1953 at age 72, lost her son, Lt. Robert Standish Smith, in February 1944 when his air ambulance crashed into a hillside while he was transporting wounded soldiers from Italy to North Africa in World War II. Four crew members, three nurses and 18 wounded men died in the crash. Standish Smith was buried in Sicily, but his remains were returned home two years after the war and reburied at Forest Hill Cemetery. The sold-out tours continue Saturday and Sunday, and an online tour will be available in the coming weeks. 

Graduate and post-doctoral students in the Department of Horticulture lab of UW-Madison professor Irwin Goldman carry one of a dozen large pumpkins grown by the students to a trailer in Merton on Thursday. Each weighing more than 100 pounds, the gourds will be used in Saturday’s Giant Pumpkin Regatta on Lake Mendota. The event, co-hosted by the department and the Hoofers Sailing Club, features students racing each other in the hollowed-out shells of the pumpkins. Assisting in the effort are Shakirah Nakasagga, a post-doctoral student; Chandler Meyer, a graduate student; and Emilee Gaulke, a graduate student whose family owns the farm. The pumpkins were started from seed in a UW greenhouse in March and transferred to the field in May.

UW-Madison math student Josiah Locke studies outdoors during a Tuesday afternoon visit to Bascom Hill, the same day that the University of Wisconsin System celebrated its 50th anniversary. On Oct. 12, 1971, legislation signed by Gov. Patrick Lucey took effect, merging Wisconsin’s two systems of public four-year higher education under a single Board of Regents.

Workers from Badger Swimpools add plaster to the surface of Goodman Pool as an off-season restoration of the facility continued Tuesday in Madison.

Runners — from left, Adele Zolik, Lily Stumm and Alma Lusson — do laps around Yahara Place Park during a Girls on the Run practice Wednesday. The group meets twice a week and is open to girls in third through fifth grade.

Enjoying mild autumn temperatures and sunny skies, members of the Wisconsin Sailing Team prepare their crafts for a practice session Thursday prior to heading out onto Lake Mendota. Half of the club’s 60 members will be competing in various university-level regattas throughout the country this weekend.

Horticulturist Larry Holterman installs lights in a tree Monday at the entrance of the Rotary Botanical Gardens in Janesville in preparation for the Gardens' holiday light show beginning the day after Thanksgiving and featuring more than 1 million lights. Holterman said he starts putting lights up in mid-August and was expecting to spend about five hours installing lights in the tree he was decorating Monday. He'll again have good weather for tree-climbing today, with sunny skies and a high in the low 70s.

Adapting a hula skirt acquired for this year’s Halloween activities for her own preferences, Kansas Polkinghorn, 5, of Madison, explores the grounds of Harvey E. Schmidt Park with a pair of sandhill cranes during a Monday visit with family.

Second-grader Clive Hebl throws a paper airplane on his walk home from school with his mom, Melanie Hebl, not pictured, Wednesday as warm fall temperatures linger before frost moves in early Friday and Saturday.

Jennifer Mallon guides eight dogs along a walkway adjacent to Warner Park during a Wednesday outing with the pets of clients of the Ruff Trails canine hiking and training enterprise. Along for the outing are, from left, Baxter, Rishi, Tonks (background), Toby, Greta, Bo, Coconut and Penny.

UW-Madison students enrolled in a foundations art course in 3D design assemble constructions of wood and metal outside the Humanities Building on Wednesday. The freeform creations allowed the students to explore concepts such as line, volume and space. 

Canoers start a trip along Wingra Creek at Olin Park on a rainy Thursday afternoon. Friday and Saturday will be better days for paddling as sunshine returns before rain moves in Sunday for what looks to be a wet week.

The changing colors of a maple tree at the UW Arboretum frame Nola Dupuis, left, and Carol Kiemel as they share a walk Friday. A frosty fall morning will give way to sunshine Saturday with high temperatures reaching back into the 50s through the weekend and into next week and a chance of showers returning Sunday. 

Brittany Plass, of Madison, practices her roller-skating skills Monday at Winnequah Skate Park in Monona. Plass recently reacquainted herself with the throwback mode of transport and should have good weather today to sharpen her skills even further. It will be in the mid-50s with mostly sunny skies.

Stephen Balsley, of Madison, goes for one of his regular 1-mile swims in Lake Wingra on Tuesday. Balsley said he will continue to swim in the lake until it freezes over.

Mei Li Brown of the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association prepares a plastic pink flamingo for placement on Bascom Hill while assisting with the foundation’s Fill the Hill fundraising event on the UW-Madison campus Friday. Representing donations to WFAA’s  Always Forward campaign, the annual tradition borrows from a fall 1979 first-day-of-school prank in which the student government planted about 1,000 flamingos on Bascom Hill.

"We can make this happen for every technical college student. We can increase access through liberal arts transfer."

Carleen Vande Zande, UW System office of academic programs

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Warren Pickar teaches an agribusiness class in the Integrated Technology Center on the Western Technical La Crosse campus. WTC is one of eight technical colleges that recently gained authority to offer an associate of arts degree. 

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