Universities of Wisconsin leaders unveiled a $90 million budget request Wednesday aimed at training 35,000 new health care professionals over the next decade, betting that a bigger pipeline of nurses, physician assistants and rural doctors can ease a workforce crunch squeezing hospitals statewide. The proposal, called Healthy Wisconsin, was announced at UW-La Crosse and is meant to be folded into the system's full 2027-29 budget request headed to the state legislature and Governor Tony Evers this fall.
Interim Universities of Wisconsin president Renée Wachter made the announcement at UW-La Crosse, according to Urban Milwaukee, which cited reporting from Wisconsin Public Radio. She was joined by chancellors James Beeby, Matt Cecil, Sandi Scott and John Zumbrunnen as part of a statewide tour this week meant to build support for the plan. Wachter, the system's longest-serving chancellor at UW-Superior, stepped into the interim presidency in May after the Board of Regents terminated former president Jay Rothman in April, according to The Daily Cardinal.
“Health care access is one of Wisconsin's greatest challenges,” Wachter said, per the Urban Milwaukee report. She and other system representatives are traveling across the state this week to gain support for the budget proposal before it goes public in full detail. System spokesperson Mark Pitsch said the total budget proposal will be released next week, ahead of a Board of Regents meeting, the outlet reported.
Why the Squeeze Is Getting Worse
The push comes as Wisconsin's health care demand is projected to grow 10 percent above current levels by 2040, per a Wisconsin Hospital Association report cited in the Urban Milwaukee article. Separately, the association's own annual report found hospital vacancy rates statewide improved to 7.2 percent in 2024, down from a pandemic peak of 10 percent in 2022, but still more than double pre-pandemic levels, according to the Wisconsin Hospital Association.
Underneath those numbers is a demographic squeeze that isn't going away soon. Wisconsin's working-age population has declined continuously since 2010 and is projected to keep shrinking through 2050, while residents 65 and older — 93 percent of whom have at least one chronic condition — are the fastest-growing segment of the state's population, the hospital association's data shows. Ann Zenk said Wisconsin's higher education institutions are critical partners in training the next generation of health professionals, according to the Urban Milwaukee report.
What the Money Would Actually Fund
On the ground, the plan translates into specific expansions at regional campuses. UW-La Crosse plans to expand enrollment capacity in high-demand fields like physician assistant programs and increase financial aid for students who commit to rural health care practice, according to UW-La Crosse. Wachter and other officials framed collaboration between higher education and hospitals as essential to addressing the state's workforce needs and maintaining access to high-quality care statewide, per the Urban Milwaukee article.
Healthy Wisconsin isn't traveling alone. The system also unveiled a complementary $25 million Cures for Tomorrow initiative this week, aimed at expanding research into cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, according to WisPolitics. Together, the two proposals signal that health care is emerging as a central pillar of the system's pitch heading into budget season.
The Retention Argument
System leaders are leaning heavily on one statistic to make their case: nearly 90 percent of in-state Universities of Wisconsin graduates remain in the state five years after earning their degree, across a system that enrolls more than 164,600 students and awards over 37,000 degrees annually, according to the Universities of Wisconsin. The argument is straightforward — train more health workers in-state, and most of them stay in-state to practice.
That retention pitch isn't new. A Governor's Task Force on the Healthcare Workforce delivered a final report to Governor Evers in August 2024 recommending state-funded Grow Our Own matching grants and other reforms meant to expand faculty capacity for training, according to the Wisconsin Hospital Association. Wachter is also scheduled to highlight the value of higher education Thursday at UW-Superior and to attend a discussion Wednesday at UW-Milwaukee on strengthening the state's talent pipeline, innovation ecosystem and long-term economic competitiveness, per the Urban Milwaukee report.
A Tougher Budget Fight Than Last Time
The ask lands against a rocky recent budget history. The Universities of Wisconsin originally sought $855 million in the 2026 state budget but ultimately received $265 million, according to the Urban Milwaukee article — a gap that underscores how far system requests can fall short of what lawmakers actually approve. Governor Evers approved several UW System capital projects in January 2025, including $29 million for UW-Madison's engineering building expansion and $10.5 million for UW-Whitewater academic hall updates, following months of partisan budget impasses.
The system is also navigating scrutiny over how it manages money it already has. Five regional UW System chancellors received performance bonuses ranging from $17,000 to more than $45,000 in early 2026 for meeting student retention targets under a Board of Regents incentive program, Hoodline previously reported. That backdrop could complicate the sales pitch for new health workforce funding, even as the underlying case for investment is bolstered by separate economic data.
A study released in April by the Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy found that Midwest consumer prices for medical services surged 140 percent between 2000 and 2025, while median household income in Wisconsin grew just 83 percent over the same period, Hoodline reported at the time. That widening gap between health costs and paychecks adds urgency to the argument that training more in-state providers could eventually ease both access problems and price pressure for Wisconsin families, though the Healthy Wisconsin proposal itself is focused on workforce supply rather than direct cost controls.
