Enrollment in UW-Platteville’s construction management program has grown nearly sevenfold since its inception thanks to the university’s hands-on building laboratory and a wide-open job market.
In the seven years since the construction management major was created, the number of students has skyrocketed from 60 to 400 this semester, a jaw-dropping increase of 566 percent. Helping drive that growth this year is 140 first-year and transfer students, the largest incoming class yet, said program coordinator Gretchen Bockenhauer.
“This is huge for our program,” Bockenhauer said. “If you were to Google construction management, usually Platteville comes to the top.”
Prior to 2020, the Department of Applied Engineering Technology Management offered construction management — the art of supervising residential, commercial and infrastructure projects — as an emphasis within the industrial technology management degree. Heading into the fall semester that year, the college won approval from the Universities of Wisconsin system to create a standalone bachelor’s degree in construction management.
The program attracted 60 students that initial semester, Bockenhauer said. As part of the degree approval process, the department guaranteed enrollment would double to 120 students within five years.
Mission accomplished, and then some. The program enrolled 280 students heading into fall 2024 and hasn’t stopped growing.
Alumni support, industry partners, word-of-mouth and UW-Platteville’s top finishes in national construction competitions all have helped attract students to the program, Bockenhauer said. Perhaps the biggest recruiting draw, though, is the university’s construction lab.
Located off campus adjacent to Pioneer Farm, the university’s working farm, the lab offers students hands-on experience building a two-story commercial structure and a stretch of highway. The work challenges students to apply what they’ve learned in class, including surveying, utility installation, on-site communication, understanding weather conditions and meeting deadlines.
The construction management program is catapulting graduates into jobs as the construction industry continues to struggle to find skilled labor. A November 2025 report from accounting firm Deloitte projected that the engineering and construction industry needs nearly half a million new workers in 2026 to keep up with demand.
More than 100 companies currently recruit from the UW-Platteville program, Bockenhauer said, and every student in the last two graduating classes has found a job. Starting salaries average about $66,466, according to the Department of Applied Engineering Technology Management.
