It's a simple economic problem: Supply is not meeting demand. The UW-Madison economics department is struggling to deliver enough course space as the major grows at a heady pace.

In the 1998-1999 academic year, there were 183 economics majors at UW-Madison. Last school year, there were 442.

Students complain about waiting lists for required courses and say they worry they won't be able to graduate on time, although officials said they don't know of any instances where someone has had to delay graduation.

Budget constraints have limited the department's ability to grow, said Gary Sandefur, dean of the College of Letters & Science.

"We do what we can to make sure people are able to graduate on time," Sandefur said. "We have tried to be responsive, but it's not as much as we would have liked. There is increasing pressure on courses and enrollments."

In the past 10 years, the economics department has added about three people to its staff for a total of about 50 faculty, instructional staff and teaching assistants.

Its budget from the state has increased by about $800,000, when adjusted for inflation.

Sandefur said recruiting top faculty is very competitive because economists can choose careers in government or the private sector rather than academia. They earn on average the highest salaries in the College of Letters and Science, he said.

The rising interest in economics is a national phenomenon, Sandefur said. The major appeals to students in a sluggish economy because of practical career opportunities, said Ananth Seshadri, department chairman. It is also a good gateway into law and business schools, he said.

The department is recognized as one of the best in the country. It was tied as the 11th-best graduate program in U.S. News and World Report's 2009 rankings, and in recent years, UW-Madison department heads have successfully recruited tenured faculty from Northwestern and Princeton universities.

But part of the reason for the increase in enrollment at UW-Madison may be the growing popularity of its School of Business, which only admits about 50 percent of its applicants.

The other 50 percent need to find parallel tracks to study, and economics is one of the most obvious for students interested in finance, said Steven Schroeder, director of undergraduate career services.

"Do students go to economics who don't get in to the business school? Absolutely," Schroeder said. "But there are a lot of economics students that aren't interested in the business school."

Unlike the School of Business, economics doesn't have a cap on enrollment. This has led to waiting lists to get into popular advanced courses, some of which are needed to graduate. Twenty-nine students were on the waiting list for International Trade & Finance this year and 21 students were on the waiting list for both Law and Economics and Econometrics.

A concerned parent recently wrote a letter to an adviser in the department about the inability of her daughter and another student to get into a required economics class in order to graduate in December.

"Both need ONE more upper level econ course to meet their graduation requirement and neither one can get in to a class despite efforts to be on waiting lists, sit on floors, talk to instructors, etc.," wrote Christine Jersild. "This is a tremendous outrage and one that has serious repercussions."

The two students did get the classes they need, but it was not without some hand-wringing.

"I know it's frustrating for students who are trying to graduate in a few months," Sandefur said.

"The question is how to meet a rapid increase in demand in economics in a time of constrained resources."