Wisconsin Regents OK tuition boost, rip legislator’s comments on Blank

Karen Herzog:

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents finalized tuition increases for nine campuses on Friday, and pushed back against a key lawmaker who blasted UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank for proposing a 35% tuition increase over four years for nonresident undergraduates.

UW-Madison will boost tuition for nonresident undergraduates 11.75% next year. Wisconsin resident undergrads at UW-Madison and all other UW campuses will not see tuition increases; their tuition has been frozen for the past two years and likely will remain frozen for the next two years.

UW-Madison also is raising tuition for both in-state and out-of-state students in business graduate programs, the doctor of nursing practice program and the professional schools of pharmacy, medicine and veterinary medicine to bring them closer to their peers in the Big 10. Those increases range from 9% to 20%.

Nonresident undergraduate tuition for the flagship campus this fall will increase by $3,000, to $28,523. International students will pay the same increase, plus $1,000. The other tuition increases range from 9% for all pharmacy school students to 20% for nonresident veterinary medicine students.

Blank proposed a four-year plan for tuition increases. The regents only gave the green light to the first two years, but indicated support for the four-year plan.

Blank’s plan would boost nonresident undergraduate tuition by a total $10,000 over four years — $3,000 each of the first two years and $2,000 each of the following two years. Nonresident undergrads this year paid $25,523, while resident undergrads paid $10,410. The new nonresidnet tuition rate does not apply to Minnesota students, who attend UW schools under the decades-old Minnesota-Wisconsin Interstate Tuition Reciprocity Agreement.