GQA

Growth, Quality and Access (GQ&A) Initiative

In order to maintain its record of excellence and provide access for more students, the University of Wisconsin La Crosse (UWL) received UW Regent’s approval to implement an undergraduate differential tuition that simultaneously grew undergraduate enrollments and resulted in hiring additional faculty and staff. Consequently, the initiative speaks to GROWTH (more graduates), QUALITY (decreased student-faculty ratios) and ACCESS (maintain or slightly increase the university's ability to take on new students as well as retain and graduate those who arrive). New undergraduate students started paying the slightly higher tuition beginning in the 2008-09 academic year resulting in a final total annual differential tuition of ~$1,000 per student.

The university’s Growth, Quality & Access program generates dedicated tuition revenue that has allowed UW-La Crosse to hire ~170 new faculty and ~36 new staff positions since the GQ&A program was implemented in 2008-09, and the undergraduate student population has grown from ~8,000 (FTE) to ~10,000. More impressively, the academic profile for incoming freshmen continues to rank first among the UW System Comprehensives.

UWL reports data associated with GQ&A to UW System via the yearly accountability reports.