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Get the latest news and research from Badger Institute
- Wisconsin should choose the right side of the income tax divide
- Data centers often bring faster connections to world
- Facts to help you decide whether Wisconsin children should be eligible for donor-funded education scholarships
- Food co-op seen as viable, more likely option than government-funded grocery store in Milwaukee
- Public school leaders look forward to possible private donations for scholarships
- Restoring accountability in Wisconsin government
- Wisconsin eventually will opt in to donor bonanza for schools, business leader predicts
- Building on the Wisconsin higher-ed reform model
Browsing: News
Of the seven remaining two-year branch colleges in the Universities of Wisconsin system, three are within walking distance and the rest are within easy driving distance of technical colleges that now are offering many of the same liberal arts courses.
A legislative committee formed to study falling enrollment across the University of Wisconsin System could recommend putting an end to what’s left of a tottering two-year branch campus system.
Many Wisconsin independents and conservatives were hoodwinked this week into voting against the two constitutional amendments that together would have given legislators shared responsibility with the governor over big buckets of federal spending.
If everything works out as under-promised, Microsoft will make the biggest single technology investment ever in the state of Wisconsin — a transformative infusion of billions of dollars to develop more than 1,500 acres in Racine County.
When it comes to UW-Madison faculty in social sciences and the humanities, the odds of finding a Republican donor are just 1 in 530.
While heat pumps can be cheaper than gas-powered furnaces, they add an average of more than $2,000 a year to a new Wisconsin home’s heating bill, according to a Badger Institute study.
Opponents of constitutional amendments use tornado scare tactics — don’t believe them
The opponents of constitutional amendments that would give legislators say along with the governor on spending federal dollars are claiming…
Wisconsin will need to build 200,000 housing units by 2030 to accommodate all the people who want to live and work here. Sheboygan County is a microcosm of the problem — but on the forefront of a possible solution.
According to a new report, Milwaukee County is a place where economic mobility fell sharply for kids born between 1978 and 1992.
If voters approve two constitutional amendment questions in August, Wisconsin would join 34 other states whose governors and legislators share authority over major federal funding allocations.
Specialized docket wins bipartisan support but faces a changed Supreme Court Advocates for a business court system operating since 2017…
Glover was living in Racine in 1854, two years after he escaped slavery in Missouri, when a bounty-hunting posse found him and dragged him off to Milwaukee’s jail, intending to return him to bondage.
A small group of enthusiasts would like to put Milwaukee at the forefront of historical preservation of postmodern architecture. Or at least help a downtown developer get a tax break.
Data centers chug electricity like undergrads drink beer, and the advent of artificial intelligence — which uses, we’re told, about 10 times the electricity as conventional searches — makes power demand soar.
After a year-long disenrollment, there are still 163,221 more people on Medicaid in Wisconsin than there were before the start of the pandemic, at a cost to taxpayers of at least $50 million a year.
Wisconsinites are very lucky to in the state that they do. And the rest of disaster-ridden America is fortunate to have us living here as well.
There is a crisis in Wisconsin higher education, brought about by costs and demographics. There are, however, ways for colleges to adapt, overcome and improve — if they’re willing to take advantage of technology and the brainpower already in-house.
If you’re puzzled why progressive commentators seem so threatened by a school choice program with one-sixteenth of the state’s pupils, with 2% of Madison’s kids, and with a taxpayer outlay per child that’s only 60% of what Madison’s government-run system spends to get its certifiably worse results, perhaps our answer lies in the upcoming referendum ask…
Passage of the controversial $252 million Milwaukee Public Schools referendum means hundreds of other districts statewide will get less aid. Madison, Waukesha and Racine school districts could lose $2 million or more in one year, Appleton and West Bend between $1 million and $2 million, and New Berlin, Fond du Lac, Green Bay and Mukwonago at least $760,000, according to calculations made by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
“Below basic” becomes “developing.” “Basic” becomes “approaching.” “Proficient” becomes “meeting.” Tellingly, the category of “advanced,” the result no one wants to hide, stays the same.

