Analyst: U of M losing $7.5 million a year on reciprocity deal

(AP) The University of Minnesota is losing $7.5 million annually in tuition under an agreement that allows Wisconsin students to attend Minnesota schools for the same tuition they would pay in Wisconsin, a university analyst told the Board of Regents Thursday.

That gap is one reason the regents are being asked to vote Friday to withdraw from the current reciprocity agreement, beginning with freshman who enter in the fall of 2008.

Under the 1968 agreement, undergraduate students from each state who attend colleges and universities in the neighboring state pay the same tuition they would pay if they remained in their home state.

For a long time, Wisconsin students have paid significantly less to attend Minnesota schools than Minnesota students pay to attend the same schools in either state, said Peter Zetterberg, senior analyst in the University of Minnesota's provost office.

"It does get creepingly worse every year," Zetterberg said.

In the current fiscal year, for example, a Minnesota resident undergraduate at the Twin Cities campus pays $8,563 in tuition, while a Wisconsin resident pays $7,372, a difference of $1,191. The biggest tuition gap, $2,720, is for students at the Morris campus. The gap is $1,737 at the Duluth campus and $1,573 at the Crookston campus.

Minnesota has been seeking changes in the agreement for three years and talks are continuing.

Last fall, 18.5 percent of the freshmen enrolling at the University of Minnesota were from Wisconsin, compared with 72.3 percent from Minnesota. Regent Dean Johnson asked university officials if they're prepared to lose some of those Wisconsin students by requiring them to pay the same tuition as Minnesota residents.

"We highly value the students coming here from the state of Wisconsin. We're going to send the strongest message that we're not withdrawing from the concept of reciprocity," University President Robert Bruininks responded.

The proposal to withdraw from the agreement is included in the university's budget resolution that the board will vote on at a special meeting June 27.

The reciprocity issue was part of a general outline of proposed tuition reform at the university under which about 75 percent of undergraduates on all four campuses would see an average tuition increase of less than 2 percent and a maximum tuition increase of 4.5 percent.

Since 1999, tuition increases have averaged about 10 percent annually. The university's general tuition proposal includes four parts.

-Establishment of 13-credit tuition bands on the Duluth, Morris and Crookston campuses under which students who take more than 13 credits a semester don't pay for the additional credits. The university estimates students who participate can save an estimated $20,000 in tuition, fees and other costs by graduating in four years instead of five. Tuition banding has been in effect on the Twin Cities campus since 1999, during which time the percentage of students graduating in four years has increased to 40.7 percent, from 25.9 percent.

-Reset undergraduate tuition rates on the Duluth and Morris campuses so they are less than rates for the Twin Cities campus. Current undergraduate tuition is $9,695 at Morris and $8,580 at Duluth, compared to $8,562 for the Twin Cities and $7,200 at Crookston.

-Lower nonresident undergraduate tuition rates at the Twin Cities and Duluth campuses to the resident rate plus $2,000 per semester in the Twin Cities and $1,000 per semester in Duluth. The university says this would help draw more students from other states as the number of high school graduates in Minnesota and Wisconsin are projected to significantly decline over the next 10 years. "It does not make sense to have a nonresident tuition rate that essentially keeps students out," Zetterberg said.

-Negotiate a change in the Wisconsin tuition reciprocity agreement or withdraw from the agreement and set rates for Wisconsin students equal to Minnesota resident rates.

Bruininks said the goal of the tuition proposals is to better serve students in Minnesota, to keep the state's better students from leaving the state and to retain graduates as part of the work force.