UW raising tuition for nonresidents
Increase will boost out-of-state tuition to $37,161 by fall 2020; biggest increases with grad programs
LA CROSSE - Tuition for graduate students and out-of-state undergrads at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is headed up again under a plan the UW System Board of Regents approved Friday.
For out-of-state undergrads, who have seen substantial tuition increases over the past four years, another 4.6% jump is planned over the next two years.
Students in graduate programs in the UW-Madison School of Business, plus pharmacy, medical, veterinary science and law schools, will see much higher increases. The highest boost — 9.8 percent each of the next two years — will be for graduate programs in business.
Tuition for Wisconsin undergrads has been frozen at the state’s flagship campus, and at all other public university campuses, for six years. No action was taken to change that.
Nonresident undergrads at UWMadison, however, have seen tuition go up by $10,000 over the past four years, to $35,523 this year.
Students in professional schools also have seen big increases, which the university says were needed to both generate revenue and bring them closer to market rates of peer campuses around the country, including the Big Ten. UW-Madison’s nonresident tuition and fees currently is lower than Michigan and Michigan State, but higher than the rest of the Big Ten. Michigan’s tuition and fees this year for nonresident students totals $49,350, which compares to $36,805 for UW-Madison after fees are included.
Past tuition increases have not hurt UW-Madison’s ability to recruit top talent, nor have they put a dent in the number of nonresident applications for undergraduate studies, UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank told the regents.
To the contrary. “I think we’re at a good place with nonresident tuition,” Blank said.
The increase will boost nonresident tuition to $37,161 by fall 2020 — nearly four times the approximate $10,500 tuition that Wisconsin residents now pay.
Despite tuition increases, the number of nonresidents applying for admission as freshmen has still grown from 15,371 in fall 2016 to 22,278 in the most recent enrollment cycle, according to Blank.
The average ACT score for nonresident new freshmen this fall was 30, compared with a Wisconsin resident new freshmen ACT average of 29.
The increase for outof-state undergrads amounts to 2.3 percent starting next fall and another 2.3 percent for the fall of 2020. The regents unanimously approved Blank’s request the “inflationary” increase. Two regents — Gov.elect Tony Evers and Gerald Whitburn — were absent.
The 2.3 percent increases amount to $810 the first year, and another $828 increase the second year.
Blank’s previous fouryear tuition plan approved by the regents in April 2015 raised a total of $70 million — $53.6 million from nonresident undergrads alone.
The new nonresident undergrad tuition increase approved by the regents on Friday will generate about $16 million, according to information provided to the regents in support of the plan. Of that amount, about 20 percent will be used for need-based scholarship assistance to support access to UWMadison for all qualified students, the university pledged.
Any remaining revenue beyond what’s needed to help offset inflationary cost increases would go toward meeting growing student demand in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields, support faculty retention efforts, and modernize infrastructure and technology in classrooms, the university says.
Tuition for international undergraduates will continue to be $1,000 higher than domestic nonresident students. The overall rate of increase will be slightly lower than 2.3 percent, the university said.