During his campus presentation, Zumbrunnen outlined a handful of ongoing challenges at UW-Madison, including:
- Federal uncertainty, like around research funding. “We know that the federal research landscape has shifted. … Maybe it hasn’t shifted quite as direly as we thought it might have, but we’re still operating … in that space of uncertainty.”
- State action. Zumbrunnen pointed to new requirements from state lawmakers around teaching workloads and how general education course credits transfer.
- Demographic shifts. “We know that there are fewer high school graduates than there once were in the United States, and we know that’s going to have an impact on recruitment and admissions for higher education.”
- Americans’ declining trust in institutions. However, he said, “we’ve got at least some data that says that picture might … have been improving for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, especially if we tell certain parts of our story really well.”
- General questions about the value of higher education and whether a college degree is worth it.