GIFTS WILL HELP MORE UWM STUDENTS GRADUATE

Donors are helping UWM close the gap in graduation rates between students of color and white students and improve the graduation rate for all students by 2030.

This spring, the We Energies Foundation gave the UWM Foundation $2 million to endow student success programs, such as emergency and retention grants, coaching, staffing and tools for advising, and to provide scholarships.

This builds on a $1 million gift from We Energies to UWM’s Moon Shot Initiative – the sweeping initiative that is central to UWM’s work as a student-focused university.

In addition, a group of donors recently committed $2.1 million through their partnership with the Greater Milwaukee

Foundation (GMF) to establish the Moon Shot for Equity Fund at GMF, which provides students with emergency grants for sudden needs, re-entry grants for students returning to school, and grants for students facing financial barriers to completing their degree.

In 2020, EAB, a national higher education consulting firm, partnered with UWM, Milwaukee Area Technical College, UW-Parkside and Carthage College to create Moon Shot for Equity. It became the country’s first group of colleges and universities to work regionally to improve college completion rates and eliminate the equity gap.

UWM has already seen improvements. The gap in six-year graduation rates between underrepresented minority students and non-underrepresented minority students at UWM improved from 17.6% in 2021 to 14.2% in 2022. UWM students who received retention grants or emergency grants were more likely to stay in school, and success coaching has also kept students on track.

“We have learned there are things we can do to make all our students more successful,” said Kay Eilers, UWM’s associate vice chancellor for enrollment management.

“But funding those efforts has been beyond our reach. These gifts will help us continue to move the needle on this critical goal of improving graduation rates.”

– Kari Pink