3 Major Wisconsin Colleges and Their Costs

This is a cost comparison of the three major types of colleges in Wisconsin. From most expensive (on average) to least expensive there are three major college types: Private, Public, and technical colleges. These costs are the 2011-2012 tuition as posted on the college websites. The comparisons are based on tuition only as with any of these colleges you could stay in the same apartment in Milwaukee and attend any of these schools.

Private Colleges

There are 20 private colleges listed at privatecollegeweek.com in Wisconsin. This list does not count for-profit private colleges such as University of Phoenix and Kaplan University, but local state based private colleges.

Marquette University is the state’s best known private college due to academic quality and the basketball program. The tuition per credit is $585 for undergraduate classes. This puts the 12 credit semester price at $15,700, the annual price at $31,400, and a Bachelors degree of 120 credits at $70,200. For the law and dental colleges the tuition rates are $1500 and $1650 respectively.

Other notable private colleges in Wisconsin: Alverno, Cardinal Stritch, Carroll, and Milwaukee School of Engineering.

Wisconsin Public Colleges

There are 13 University of Wisconsin Colleges throughout the state. The colleges all run independent of one another despite having UW-location names.

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee shows annual tuition of $8780 for in state students. This would make the total cost of a 120 credit Bachelor’s degree $35,120 if it takes four years to complete. Some of the other UW colleges have tuition rates of $200 a credit hour which puts a degree at $24,000.

Technical Colleges
In Wisconsin the associate (2 year) granting state colleges are technical colleges. They have similar programs as other states community or junior colleges.

Milwaukee Area Technical College is the state’s largest tech school with 50,000 students at four campuses around Milwaukee. The tuition rate is $127-165 per credit hour depending on the program. At 12 credit hours per semester it is $1500-1980, annually $3000-3960, and to complete a 60 credit associates degree it is $7700.

The decision on which college to attend based on costs will always favor the technical colleges in Wisconsin. But if a student wants a name brand education to become a dentist then Marquette’s price tag will have a great value to them. The college decision comes down to the question of cost versus value, this article hopefully helped with the price component.


People also view

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *