Drake White-Bergey
Women outnumber men at nine of UW’s 13 campuses, including Stevens Point, above.
If your impression is that there are more female students than male students at UW-Madison, you’re not wrong.
In 2025, the university enrolled almost 1,000 fewer men (3,800) than women (4,744) as first-year students. Also, according to data from the university’s office of the registrar, male students are less likely to stay at the university and less likely to graduate on time than women.
Persistent gender gaps exist in enrollment numbers across the UW system, according to an Isthmus analysis of enrollment data captured by the National Center for Education Statistics’ annual Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System survey.
Around 46% of students within the Universities of Wisconsin are men and 54% are women. Only three campuses — UW-Whitewater, UW-Platteville and UW-Stout — enroll more men than women. UW-Superior has the lowest percentage of male students, 38%, compared to 62% female enrollees.
Source: Universities of Wisconsin IPEDS 2025-26
A graph comparing the enrollment of male and female students at UW in 2025-26.
Some higher education experts say that the declining male participation rate could pose a substantial financial issue for Wisconsin’s public university system, especially as it faces a “demographic cliff” — a smaller graduating class in 2026 caused by the fall in birthrates after the 2008 financial crisis.
“I think there’s been a lot of denial around the broader demographic issue and higher ed in relation to what we say it is, especially around the issue of why men aren’t showing up,’ says Bob Atwell, who served on the UW Board of Regents for seven years before his term expired in 2024.
Adds Atwell: “For [UW-]Madison, it’s something that ought to be explored. But for the other campuses, this is a life or death issue.”
The percentage of Wisconsin students who plan to attend a two- or four-year university immediately after high school has declined since 2019, when about 60% headed to college.
According to state Department of Instruction data, 44% of male students in the 2023-24 class immediately enrolled in a post-secondary institution. About 59% of female students did the same.
Atwell says that he pressed for system administrators to study the issue of declining male enrollment throughout his time as a regent, but had little success. UW system administrators, he says, largely took the attitude that “the reason men aren’t coming is because they’re just too stupid to understand their own self-interest,” given the economic benefits of having a bachelor’s degree.
“Believe me, those words aren’t spoken that way, but if you pick apart the sentences, that’s what it’s saying,” says Atwell.
Atwell says that rather than focusing on male enrollment, UW system administrators largely targeted enrollment gains among international and nontraditional students to make up for the decline. He adds that the current reluctance of international students to enroll in American universities makes the drop in traditional students more severe.
There is some conversation going on among Universities of Wisconsin administrators regarding male enrollment. President Jay Rothman and his leadership team met on July 15, according to records obtained by Isthmus, to discuss the “Speaking with American Men” report, a $20 million brief published in 2025 that explored why Democrats are failing to win over young men.
The report largely focuses on young men’s media habits, not higher education issues, though it encourages higher education institutions to consider top-level challenges facing young men, such as affordability and housing, and to take campus culture issues seriously: “Too often, young men who consume right-wing media or use language unwelcome on a college campus are dismissed by progressives as irredeemable sexists or incels. We found this sentiment to be both categorically untrue and also counterproductive. Young men speak about not being welcome in progressive spaces, and there is a real loneliness crisis and mental health challenges.”
Asked for comment on why leaders of the state’s public university system were discussing a report meant to help progressives make gains among young men, UW system spokesperson Mark Pitsch says in a statement that the report included “insights relevant to our universities, including young men’s attitudes toward education, economic and social challenges, and media consumptions.”
Pitsch says more women than men have enrolled at UW system universities for “more than four decades” and that system administrators are aware of “recent enrollment trends among young men.” Pitsch did not clarify whether system administrators view declining enrollment of young men as a problem.
“We anticipate Direct Admit Wisconsin will continue to reach students, including young men, who may not otherwise consider a UW education,” says Pitsch, referring to a program enacted in 2024 that offers guaranteed entry to UW system schools, excepting UW-Eau Claire, UW-La Crosse and UW-Madison, to qualifying high school students.
