Local colleges

When I went to Richland Center, many of the students were older - some just coming back from Vietnam - now we have Iraq to bring the coffins home....


When Shawn Cassiman got divorced, she knew it was time to go to college to be better able to support herself and her children.
A high school dropout with an equivalency diploma, she enrolled at UW-Superior at age 40. Commuting from Ashland, she worked at a pizza joint as well as work-study jobs between classes, before gaining her bachelor's degree in 2002.
Now Cassiman has a master's degree and is working toward a Ph.D. in social welfare at the UW-Madison.
She says she was "lucky" to get scholarships and to find the mentors she needed to gain her degrees. But the University of Wisconsin System is launching a new Adult Student Initiative aimed at taking much of the luck out of the equation for older "nontraditional" students such as Cassiman.
"Nontraditional" UW student Shawn Cassiman returned to college nine years ago at age 40 and is now working toward a Ph.D.
The number of students age 24 and older has dropped dramatically in the past 10 years - at the UW-Madison and in the system as a whole. Statewide, nontraditional undergraduate students declined from 27,069 in 1995 to 20,095 in 2005. At UW-Madison, the numbers of undergraduate students age 24 and older dropped from 2,616 in 1997 to 1,661 in 2005.
UW System President Kevin Reilly said the new initiative - proposed as part of the next two-year budget at a cost of $2.6 million - is necessary to close a 5 percent gap in bachelor's degrees that Wisconsin suffers in comparison with Illinois and Minnesota.
That is one reason why the state has a lower average family income and suffers in economic vitality compared to some other states in the region, he said. Creating more high-paying employment opportunities within the state's economy requires an educated population.
"There is a documented need to attract adults with an associate degree or substantial college credit to UW System campuses to complete a bachelor's degree," Reilly said.
The new initiative - to be launched by the UW Colleges and UW-Extension - is in addition to existing programs, and would not mean a cut in funding for traditional students entering college out of high school.
The additional money would be used to identify, recruit and serve potential adult students, expand opportunities for them through distance education and provide more counseling.
Wisconsin has a high level of people with associate degrees who could use UW resources to gain bachelor's degrees, Reilly said. Jobs requiring at least a bachelor's degree include computer system analysts, schoolteachers, physical therapists and graphics designers. The potential market of Wisconsinites age 18 and older who have some college credit or an associate degree is 1.2 million people, and researchers estimate that 60,860 are "extremely or very interested in enrolling in a degree program," UW System officials said.
No one is quite sure why nontraditional students have declined, though the fact that tuition has risen sharply in recent years may be a factor. Sharp competition from private universities offering flexible hours and online courses could also be a factor.
UW System spokesman Dave Giroux added that state budget cuts have forced the system to focus more narrowly on a core mission of traditional-aged on-campus undergraduates. "It has more to do with our internal issues, doing more with less," he said.
But Teri Venker, a spokeswoman for the UW Colleges and UW-Extension, said another major cause is likely a scary university bureaucracy.
"Especially in parts of the state where no UW campus is located, the University of Wisconsin is often perceived as a bureaucracy that some people find intimidating. They don't know where to start," she said.
View from the desks: Rod Perry knew where to start, but he had to get past some obstacles first.
Perry, 63, lost his job as a digitizer in the business outfitters division of Lands' End in Dodgeville in February 2005. He designed digital logos that are embroidered on garments with a computer-assisted sewing machine, but he said he and some 40 others lost their jobs when Lands' End contracted for the work to be done in India and South America.
Perry and others applied for a federal program allowing them to draw unemployment while attending college, but they were denied and had to appeal more than once.
The application was finally approved, and in September Perry started taking classes at UW-Richland in his hometown of Richland Center to get an associate degree in liberal arts, with an emphasis on business.
"The big hang-up is that the program demands that you carry 12 credits. To be 44 years out of the classroom and leap into a 12-credit schedule was at least brutal, but it turned out a little better than I expected," he said.
In fact, Perry ended his first semester with a 3.9 grade point average.
"They want you to finish and then take a job. I said, 'OK, but who would hire me at 65?' "
Perry said he plans to cross that bridge when he comes to it, while Deanna Newlun of Wonewoc has a clear idea of where she wants to go next.
She will graduate from UW-Richland in May with an associate degree in liberal arts and science and intends to pursue a bachelor's degree in criminal justice online through a four-year institution so she can become a probation or parole officer.
Newlun enrolled four years ago at age 28 to find a more interesting career. Married with children ages 8 and 4, she currently works part time as a ticket agent at the Crystal Grand Music Theatre in Wisconsin Dells.
Her husband, Chris, is a truck driver who is often away from home, so it has been a struggle to juggle school, homework, her children and jobs.
"It has gotten easier as my kids have gotten older. At first the classes were difficult because I didn't know what to expect, and some are still difficult," said Newlun, although she has made the Dean's List with high honors every semester.
Both she and Cassiman urged people thinking about going back to school to do so.
"It's never too late, and it's not as bad as you might think," Newlun said. "It has been very rewarding. I've met a lot of new people and I was able to experience college, on a different level but still experience it."
Cassiman said the same, even though, like Newlun, she has also had to take out student loans to get her degrees.
"I ended up with a great adviser in my program. We all need support and help to do anything we do. A big part of support is financial, but encouragement and belief in your ability to succeed are very important," she said.
"It is really important to recognize that because we don't all follow the same type of trajectory doesn't mean that we can't do things. If you didn't do it 20 years ago, that doesn't mean you can't do it. A lot of times people put their dreams on hold."