For the first time in almost two years, University of Wisconsin Chancellor Rebecca Blank spoke Wednesday  at the Rotary Club on approaching university budget cuts and campus tuition.

Blank began her speech with recognizing UW as a “hot ticket” point of interest for incoming freshman. UW’s increase in applications is the reason for record-breaking statistics over the past two years, but Blank said the applications are largely coming from out-of-state students. The number of Wisconsin high school graduates has declined by 10 percent over the last six years, which has also partly caused a declining number of Wisconsin applicants.

“If we want to grow any further in Madison, we quite honestly are not in a situation where we can take in three out-of-state students for every one in-state student,” Blank said.

In response to the changing application demographic, UW’s cap on out-of-state tuition was waived by the Board of Regents, and Blank thanked them for their action. There’s a guarantee to enroll a minimum 3,600 Wisconsin freshmen, but Blank said the university is going to have to work hard to make sure they’re attracting even more top quality students in Wisconsin.

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While many Wisconsin residents apply to UW, Blank said the majority of those who apply and are admitted choose an out-of-state university if they decide not to attend UW. But if UW were to continue attracting and enrolling more Wisconsin students, the likelihood that they will spend their career working in the state will also increase.

“A number of people in the whole system are working on the question of what should tuition be,” Blank said. “And I’m particularly concerned about that at UW-Madison.”

In discussing last spring’s budget decisions, Blank said the $250 million UW System cut resulted in a $86 million cut to the university. There will be $34 million in cuts this year, and next year there will be an $11 million cut, with more than half the $86 million “hole” being filled through the internal cuts.

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But in regards to increasing revenue in the context of out-of-state students and tuition, Blank said the BOR gave her permission to increase out-of-state and professional school tuitions. She said the university hasn’t been charging the market price for out-of-state tuition as well as that of professional schools.

“Our VetMed school [School of Veterinary Medicine] was cheaper to go to if you were a resident of Illinois as an out-of-state student than to go to the vet school as an in-state student in Illinois. That makes no sense at all,” Blank said.

While it’s the third year of the UW in-state tuition freeze, Blank said freezing the prices usually isn’t a “good idea.” But she added that when in-state tuition is negotiated after the freeze ends, she doesn’t want to see tuition rapidly increase for Wisconsin residents.