Providing higher education access to its citizens — for as little cost as possible — has long been a top priority for the state of Wisconsin.

One tool aimed at increasing such opportunities has been a longstanding reciprocity agreement with the state of Minnesota in which students from one state can attend universities in the other at the in-state tuition rate.

While most Wisconsinites report satisfaction with the current arrangement and cite it as a sound policy, some in Minnesota believe they are getting the short side of the stick.

The problem, according to Minnesota Rep. Yvonne Prettner Solon, D-Duluth, is the failure to account for the difference in in-state tuitions, which is considerably lower in Wisconsin.

Under the current confines of the arrangement, students pay the tuition figures of their home state, resulting in some seemingly counterintuitive results.

"This year the Wisconsin students attending [the University of Minnesota-Duluth] are paying $1,700 a year less than the [Minnesota] students," Solon said. "This creates a bad taste for many people [and] it's an issue that I've been trying to push for a few years now."

Solon's concern over the system is one shared by few across the border, according to Wisconsin Rep. Robin Kreibich, R-Eau Claire, who chairs the state Committee on Colleges and Universities.

"I don't think we can just say, 'wow,' it's that much more expensive in Minnesota," Kreibich said. "Over time it evens out, and hey, we're probably doing them a favor — theirs is more expensive than ours, [so] they'll probably hold their [tuition] down."

The inequality

Tuition reciprocity between Wisconsin and Minnesota is nothing new, and according to Peter Zetterberg, director of the Office of Institutional Research and Reporting at the University of Minnesota, there have been only minor revisions since its inception in the 1960s.

"This is an agreement that has worked well for both states for a long time," Zetterberg said. "I think it was rather far-sighted on the part of the people back in the 1960s."

But in recent years, Zetterberg said, the practicality of the arrangement has been steadily decreasing, as the University of Wisconsin-Madison in particular now has the lowest in-state tuition in the Big Ten.

"On our Morris campus, Wisconsin students are paying $7,136, and Minnesota students are paying $9,722 … and that's just way too big a difference," he said. "How would you like to be sitting in a class and a student from another state is paying $2,000 or $2,500 less than you are?"

Efforts to correct the situation have been met with resistance, however. According to Solon, the Minnesota governor's office has been reluctant to address the situation, and Zetterberg said he has heard policymakers in Wisconsin are "pushing back" when approached about negotiations.

Wisconsin Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, counted himself among the group who would oppose any changes to the status quo.

"The current system works better for Wisconsin taxpayers," Suder said. "I think it would be foolish for us to change the agreement."

Any Minnesota-induced change to the agreement would have to be approved by the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, and according to Regent Charles Pruitt, who chairs the Board's Business, Finance & Audit Committee, discussion of the arrangement is not on their radar.

"I know that every once in a while in the last, probably, 10 or 15 years, somebody on some side of the border or [the] other has said 'we got to look at it,'" Pruitt said. "Everybody feels at this point it's a system that provides access to Wisconsin students, obviously, as well as Minnesota students."

Solon said she is not surprised by the lack of enthusiasm from Wisconsin on leveling the playing field, which according to Kreibich results in a $10 million "windfall" for the state every year.

"The University of Wisconsin likes this agreement, because of course they get paid a lot more for our students going over there … than they do for their own students," Solon said. "It's not so much an issue for them, and they like being able to attract students from neighboring states."

Zetterberg expressed some disappointment with Wisconsin's reluctance to cooperate, as he said the ideal resolution to the system would be to force students going to the other state to pay the higher of the two tuitions — which, ultimately, would only affect Wisconsin students studying in Minnesota.

Additionally, he said, such a change would likely be phased in as to not affect any current students.

But according to Suder, as long as Minnesota continues to send its students to UW schools, there is little incentive to cooperate.

"If we had a shortage of Minnesota residents or Minnesota students, that would be one thing," he said. "I think reciprocity, the way it currently works, is fair for both Minnesota and Wisconsin. The proof in that is Minnesota is actively participating in that reciprocity."

Is reciprocity good?

In an age when the University of Wisconsin is under great economic constraint and prides itself in coming up with creative means of fundraising, it must scrutinize all significant expenditures.

While most in the university and Legislature alike seem to be supportive of its contract with Minnesota, reciprocity agreements are not all that common across the Big Ten, or across the country.

Although Minnesota engages in full tuition reciprocity with Wisconsin, South Dakota, North Dakota and the Canadian province of Manitoba, major public universities in Wisconsin's other border states opt not to partake in reciprocity at all.

"We don't have any kind of reciprocity arrangement," University of Illinois spokesperson Tom Hardy said. "State policymakers here in Illinois like to make sure that there are plenty of spaces available and that students from Illinois who are qualified can get into the state universities that we have here."

According to Hardy, undergraduate enrollment at Urbana-Champaign, UI's flagship campus, is approximately 90 percent in-state residents.

The University of Iowa and the University of Michigan also opt not to participate in reciprocity contracts with bordering states.

"A lot of states don't have any," Zetterberg acknowledged. "I think Minnesota and Wisconsin historically have been quite progressive, regardless of the political party that is in power."

In a rare showing of solidarity, Suder, often one of the university's most outspoken critics, had only good things to say about reciprocity and joked people should "mark this down" as a rare occasion he and UW see eye-to-eye.

"People see it as an opportunity in each of the two states to sort of widen the range of choices for students coming out of high school," Pruitt said. "I think clearly the reason it remains [is that] for students and their families this is a very attractive thing."

And as Lynn Paulson, associate vice president for budget planning in the UW System, pointed out, not only do students get a wider array of institutions to choose from, but reciprocity also allows the two states to sometimes function as one, because both states do not have to duplicate programs with small interest levels.

"It benefits many of the campuses, UW-La Crosse and UW-River Falls in particular, but we also have a lot of students who want to go to a big school," Kreibich said. "For a lot of my constituents, the University of Minnesota is closer. It's the closest Big Ten school."

And despite rumblings from Minnesota, the future of the reciprocity program does not appear to be in any serious jeopardy.

"I don't mind having some reciprocal agreement where they would pay the higher [of] either their state's tuition or the other state's tuition," Solon said. "I do think it's a good thing."