Nev Singh grew up in Winona, Minnesota, but when it came time to choose a college she knew the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities was not for her.
“Right away, I knew I wasn’t going to the U of M,” said Singh, a University of Wisconsin-Madison sophomore majoring in computer engineering.
After narrowing down her choices to UW-Madison and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the price tag ultimately determined her decision. The reciprocity agreement between Minnesota and Wisconsin allowed Singh to attend UW-Madison, paying about the same tuition as an in-state resident.
“[At] Illinois, I’d be paying out-of-state [tuition] and that’d be like $40,000,” Singh said. “So that’s kind of what it came down to.”
Singh had always wanted to attend a large university, and she said she considered UW-Madison and UIUC based on their engineering programs and the feel of each campus.
She eliminated the U of M as a choice because its engineering program was not as renowned as the other two schools, and she wanted a university with more of a “college town” atmosphere than the Twin Cities.
The longstanding reciprocity agreement allows students from both Minnesota and Wisconsin to attend public institutions in the partnering state at a rate close to the in-state price.
However, the Committee on Undergraduate Recruitment, Admissions and Financial Aid presented a suggestion to the Faculty Senate May 6 stating that ending the agreement would better serve Wisconsin residents and allow the university to bring in more tuition money.
If the committee’s suggestion moves forward, the two flagship universities, UW-Madison and the U of M, would end reciprocity and Minnesotans attending UW-Madison would pay the full out-of-state tuition. Reciprocity would still be maintained at all other public institutions in the two states, including schools such as UW-Eau Claire and U of M-Duluth.
In order to eliminate reciprocity at the flagship campuses, both the state of Wisconsin and Board of Regents would need to pass legislation in favor of the change.
According to CURAFA’s report, UW-Madison loses between $42 and $52 million per year by giving Minnesota students reduced tuition.
CURAFA Chair Sara Goldrick-Rab, a UW-Madison professor of educational policy and sociology, said she takes issue with spending money to keep tuition low for Minnesotans when the same money could be applied toward lowering tuition for Wisconsin residents.
“We’re not trying to end access for Minnesota students,” Goldrick-Rab said. “The issue here is increasing the revenue to the institution, so that all students will benefit.”
The report provides recommendations for the “ideal incoming class,” advocating for 60 percent of the incoming freshman class to be Wisconsin residents. The percentage of Wisconsin residents making up the freshman class has declined over time, from 64.3 percent Wisconsin residents in fall 2002 to 56 percent in 2012.
The report also states that eliminating reciprocity could help achieve CURAFA’s goal of increasing diversity within the state of Wisconsin. It stresses a need to serve lower-income students and draw students from underrepresented areas of the state, such as small towns, rural areas and the city of Milwaukee.
Jessica Behling, Associated Students of Madison Diversity Committee chair, said she believes eliminating reciprocity at UW-Madison could be a disadvantage to lower-income Minnesotans who want to attend the school but cannot afford out-of-state tuition. Although she said she believes diversity from within Wisconsin is important, she said recruiting students from Minnesota and other places is beneficial to making the campus diverse.
“Part of the Wisconsin Idea is preparing our students … for the diversity of the working world,” Behling said. “If we’re only exposed to the diversity of Wisconsin … we’re also missing out on the diversity of other places in our nation and in our world.”
Provost Paul DeLuca told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Thursday he was concerned eliminating reciprocity would mean fewer Minnesotan students would be able to attend to UW-Madison.
Goldrick-Rab, however, argued that Minnesotans are likely able to afford the out-of-state rate as on average, the state’s family income is higher than that of Wisconsin families. The average family income of Minnesota students is $105,000, compared to the $85,000 held on average by Wisconsin students’ families, according to the report.
“There’s every indication that their families are at least able to afford it compared to the Wisconsin resident students,” Goldrick-Rab said.
DeLuca also said eliminating reciprocity would create more competition for Wisconsin students because students would apply to UW-Madison who may have instead wanted to attend school at the U of M. He also said that although diversity of recruitment was important, the school needed to ensure that accepted students were able to succeed at UW-Madison.
Singh’s younger sister will also attend UW-Madison in the fall. The choice for her came down to the U of M and UW-Madison, and she chose UW largely because it would be logistically easier for her parents to have both daughters attend the same school.
Without reciprocity, though, Singh’s sister would most likely have chosen to attend school in Minnesota.
Singh said she believes that like herself and her sister, many Minnesotans would decide not to attend Madison if they had to pay the full tuition price.
“They’d probably lose a lot of kids,” Singh said.
