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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is proposing major changes to the decades-old tuition reciprocity agreement between this state and Minnesota. The agreement allows Badger State students to attend Gopher State universities at reduced rates. Walker is proposing to eliminate a state subsidy for the program after Wisconsin shelled out about $12.9 million to Minnesota under the agreement – and got no payment in return.

Such an agreement has been in place between the two states since 1968. In its current form, Wisconsin students attend public universities in Minnesota but pay tuition equivalent to what they would pay at a similar school in their home state. Minnesota students enjoy the same benefit: They attend Wisconsin schools but pay Minnesota tuition rates. The agreement allows students from both states to avoid pricey out-of-state tuition rates.

(photo by University of Minnesota)

Students enjoy lower tuition partly because of state subsidy. Each state is required to “make up the difference” between what its students pay in tuition and what costs the other state’s university system incurs to instruct those students.

According to a new report released by Minnesota’s Office of Higher Education, Wisconsin paid about $12.9 million to Minnesota for the 2009-10 school year. Minnesota, however, paid nothing under the agreement, primarily because its students – who paid Gopher State tuition rates, which are generally higher – covered their own instruction costs and required no state subsidy.

The Minnesota students actually paid so much they overpaid: Wisconsin had to return $4 million in tuition payments to Minnesota because they exceeded costs incurred by the Badger State to educate them.

Jack Rayburn, the Office of Higher Education analyst who wrote the report, said the states’ differing tuition rates “really drive what goes on in these agreements.”

Walker is proposing doing away with the state subsidies and requiring students to pay the in-state tuition of the university they are attending. Under this system, a Wisconsin student attending a Minnesota school would pay Minnesota’s in-state tuition rates and vice versa.

scott walker

The governor’s office estimates Wisconsin general fund savings of about $12 million annually from cutting the subsidy.

A March 31 letter to the state Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee, which would have to approve the change to the state’s tuition reciprocity agreement, says Wisconsin’s Higher Educational Aid Board (which pays this state’s subsidy) and Minnesota “have mutually agreed to end” the old system.

“We don’t think taxpayers should pay more to send Wisconsin students to an out-of-state college than they would for an in-state college,” says Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie.

He says Wisconsin students using the reciprocity program typically pay about $8,000 a year to attend a Minnesota school, and the state pays an additional $3,000.

About 10,300 Wisconsin students used the program in 2009, compared to 14,152 Minnesota students. Since at least 1985, the number of Gopher State students using the program has outnumbered the number of Badger State ones.

The primary attraction for Minnesota residents appears to be attending UW-Madison or UW schools in western Wisconsin, such as UW-River Falls, UW-Stout or UW-Eau Claire.

Most Wisconsin students either attend the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities or Winona State University in southeastern Minnesota.

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