My son graduated from UWEC in 2014. He was a CS and Math double major and has been working in Madison since June of '14. My daughter will be a senior at UWEC this fall. She’s a history/english education major. Both did and have thoroughly enjoyed their experience. My daughter was in Central Europe all of this June as part of a class. There is a high rate of study abroad for a smaller school.
UWEC and La Crosse have set themselves apart some from the other campuses in general but others have some strong areas, particularly Whitewater for business, Platteville for engineering and Stevens Point for natural resources sorts of things. When touring, both my kids liked UWEC more than La Crosse.
The year my son started, UWEC implemented a differential tuition charge to be used to expand a number of programs. A couple other campuses have that too, I believe. That charge is grandfathered in with the tuition freeze.
UWEC has a nice honors program that both of my kids have been a part of. I hope that continues, I think it will as I don’t think any other of the smaller campuses have as good an honors program, most don’t have one at all. UWEC is a teaching school first and foremost and it’s “specialty” so to speak is undergrad student-faculty collaborative research for those who seek it out. My son did this all 4 years in CS and junior year in math as well.
There’s no way to really predict what the cuts will mean, only time will tell. It is atrocious how little regard the governor and current legislature have for higher education. The article link in post #3 was very interesting to me and gives me some encouragement even though my daughter only has a short time left.