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Home > Opinion > Larger problem hidden by reciprocity?
Larger problem hidden by reciprocity?
Over the course of the last seven years, tuition rates have more than doubled for students attending the U of M system. While tuition and financial aid issues are rampant across the country, students, administration and politicians have been scrambling to tackle these problems in any way possible.
Students who are not residents of Minnesota, but are attending UMD from a neighboring state, such as Wisconsin, may be enrolled as an out-of-state student covered under a reciprocity agreement. This agreement is structured in a way that students from the neighboring state pay the university what it would cost to attend a similar public university in their own state. So students from Wisconsin, for example, would pay less to attend UMD than students from Duluth-or anywhere in Minnesota. The same works in the reverse direction, students from Minnesota attending the University of Wisconsin would be paying the cost of tuition here at the U of M system, which is more than what students in Wisconsin pay to attend the UW schools.
As tuition has skyrocketed, that gap between what students from Wisconsin and Minnesota pay here in Minnesota has considerably widened. This has caused many students, who are Minnesota residents, to become infuriated, and demand for changes or an end to what they view as an unfair reciprocity agreement. The issue has been at the top of the Student Legislative Coalition's agenda over the last two years.
Minnesota politicians have responded, and there has been a substantial push to modify the reciprocity agreement with the state of Wisconsin. What is extremely interesting is the response by the Higher Education Board of Wisconsin. As it looks, the additional monetary burden that the U of M system may begin to place on Wisconsin residents may be subsidized by Wisconsin. The fact that Wisconsin is willing to go so far to help its residents at the U of M system and that there is such a gap in tuition costs should speak volumes to the real issue at play here in Minnesota. There is simply not enough of an emphasis being placed on the funding of higher education-or education in general-;in this state as of the last 5-6 years.
While Minnesota and Wisconsin have consistently ranked in the top three states in the nation in terms of academic performance, Wisconsin has always had a slight edge. The obvious correlation would seem to point to the higher revenue commitment towards secondary and post-secondary education.
While students have a right to be upset by the tuition disparity, they should be more upset by what that tuition disparity shows. Rather than spending exhaustive amounts of time lobbying state politicians to make out-of-state residents pay more, perhaps they should spend more time pressing their elected officials to make higher education a higher priority in Minnesota.
