A reduction of over $4.5 million from the $17 million discretionary state support may greatly impact the Distance Learning Center at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.
Chancellor Dennis J. Shields stated in an open meeting on March 11 that he aims to preserve flexibility for future decisions. This will be achieved by communicating with the faculty and students at UW-Platteville and moving money that will best satisfy the budget.
The DLC generates close to $7 million annually with no aid from the university or the state of Wisconsin. UW-Platteville receives approximately 10 percent, or $700,000, of the DLC’s gross revenue, brought in from tuition and small grants.
According to the UW-Platteville tuition and fee schedule and DLC webpages, a DLC student is billed about $370 per credit hour compared to a Tri State Initiative, student billed $429 and a Wisconsin resident at $262 per credit hour.
In addition to the 10 percent of its gross revenue paid to the university, the DLC pays a percentage of the revenue to all three colleges that offer online degree programs as reimbursement for the use of their professors. The DLC also paid $750,000 over the last three years to help upgrade the PASS system; a system that DLC and on-campus students rely on. For the next two fiscal years, the DLC will pay an additional $400,000 to rent space on campus; a charge they have not had in the past.
Director of the DLC, Daniel Avenarius, said that the budget proposal would increase the 10 percent that they pay from the gross revenue generated to 20 percent.
Avenarius said the DLC’s 10 percent contribution to UW-Platteville is actually about 22-25 percent of its gross revenue once these other payments are added. In addition to the proposed 20 percent, the cost recovery proposal would include an additional 20 percent to all of the 136 accounts within the DLC program, which have not been added in the past, and paying $55,000 to support the Peer-Assisted Learning Program, which will serve no DLC students.

“My biggest concern is that the students that are paying their tuition for the distance classes will receive minimal benefit from how the money will be used to handle the budget issues,” Dawn Drake, executive director of alternative delivery systems, said. “My focus is to advocate for these students that are not on campus.”
If the governor’s proposed budget is adopted for the 2015-2016 fiscal year, the total amount the DLC will contribute annually to the campus will be about 33 percent of its gross revenue, or about $2.4 million that the DLC generates without aid from the state or university.
“If they do implement those budget proposals our ability to continue to generate more programs, more enrollment, more tuition is going to be seriously impacted,” Avenarius said.
Avenarius, an alumnus of the DLC, took classes from 2004 to 2006 while employed at the Dubuque Police Department and continued to complete his masters degree in criminal justice online. He was later approached to develop and teach criminal justice courses at the undergraduate level; he teaches one course a semester in addition to his administrative duties.Another former course developer, Drake was asked to lead the effort for developing online programs. Drake now oversees the DLC, Continuing Education, the Instructional Center for Education Technology and the Desire2Learn administration.
D2L is a course management system that delivers learning resources to students and allows them to access course content and syllabus information online. This system is also used for tests and to connect with classmates and instructors.
Avenarius said the DLC administration would be more than willing to work with the university to combat the issues brought on by the budget cuts. He is concerned about the misunderstanding about the amount being asked in addition to what the DLC is already paying the university.
“If the revenue-generating proposal that would increase the current 10 percent to 20 percent is adopted, continued revenue will not occur,” Avenarius said. “This proposal will have the opposite result that it is intended for. It will limit the growth of the DLC’s development of new graduate degree programs, which will hurt their appeal to new students.”
Mittie Den Herder, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, said if UW-Platteville doesn’t take the extra money from the DLC and they keep it in their program, in five years the university may see more revenue coming back from the DLC than it would realize by investing the DLC’s contribution to the university.
The DLC just completed the draft of its next five-year plan, with intent to continue the increased student enrollment by 50 percent and continue the use of a cost-recovery business model. Part of the five-year plan includes the development of two to three additional graduate degree programs. This model would allow money paid through online tuition to be reinvested to support the growth of programs, students and faculty involved in online education.
In 2014 the online program surpassed 1,000 graduates and reached more than 2,500 students worldwide offering eight degrees at both graduate and undergraduate level. The graduate programs available include Science in Engineering, Project Management, Criminal justice, Integrated Supply Chain Management, Organizational Change Leadership and Distance Education Leadership. Undergraduate programs offered are the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Criminal Justice.
Founded in 1978 with a graduating class of five students and offering a single bachelor’s degree in business administration in print, the number of students grew larger when online courses were offered. The DLC administration is currently working with 1,936 active online students within their programs, reaching 43 states and 23 countries.