(The Center Square) – Democrats at the Wisconsin Capitol are laying the blame for the end of the UW-Platteville Richland campus on statehouse Republicans but aren’t acknowledging the school’s drop in enrollment.

A handful of Senate Democrats on Thursday told reporters that years of underfunding are to blame for this week’s decision to fully close the UW-PLatteville campus in Richland Center.

“It is not lost on me, and it should not be lost on the people in the state of Wisconsin that there is a direct line from what we’re seeing happening in Richland County to the continued underfunding of our UW system especially since 2011,” Senate Democratic Leader Diane Hesselbein told reporters.

The university announced in the fall of 2022 it was ending in-person classes at the Richland campus. On Tuesday, the university said it was closing the campus all together.

“After careful consideration, and despite tremendous efforts expended by Richland County and the Universities of Wisconsin over these past many months, UW-Platteville will completely vacate the Richland County campus by July 1, 2024,” the letter stated. “While we are disappointed that we were unable to find a path forward, we also know this change can provide significant new opportunities in Richland County.”

Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, said the Republican-controlled legislature has starved the UW as a whole for years.

“In 1984 state funding made up 41.7% of UW system revenues. But by last year it had fallen all the way to 18%, less than half of what it used to be,” Larson explained. “Students’ share, in the same time, went from 13.9% up to 24%.”

The Senate Democrats also used the Richland campus closing as an opportunity to attack Republican Sen. Joan Ballweg and promote her new Democratic opponent.

Larson, Hesselbein, and the other Democrats didn’t mention the Richland campus’ plunging enrollment.

The UW decided to end in-person classes at the Richland campus when the school had just 57 students in the fall of 2022. But UW enrollment numbers show the campus in Richland Center never had more than 514 students, and that was in the fall of 2013.

The University of Wisconsin has announced plans to end in-person classes at five of its two-year campuses over the past two years. Each one with similarly small enrollment numbers.