Following the threat of ending a 34-year pact, representatives from Wisconsin and Minnesota agreed upon a new reciprocity agreement this summer that will continue to increase choice for students in both states.

Issues arose during negotiations due to the larger number of Minnesota residents who attend Wisconsin universities as compared to Wisconsin residents attending Minnesota universities.

The new policy, according to University of Wisconsin System spokesperson David Giroux, will not harm students on either side of the border and is simply "a change in how the money flows."

"Students that enroll for the first time in the fall of 2008 will be charged the higher of the two tuition rates of either the campus they are attending or the comparable school in their home state," Giroux said.

Wisconsin residents were previously paying less money to attend Minnesota universities then Minnesota residents were because Wisconsin's in-state tuition is less than Minnesota's.

In the previous agreement, Giroux said Wisconsin would send money back to the state of Minnesota at the end of the year to help balance extra tuition Wisconsin campuses were collecting from Minnesota residents.

Wisconsin will still be compensating Minnesota for the imbalance, but some of the money will be directed to the Minnesota universities themselves — not just the state, Giroux said.

The new agreement was reached through "a long process of state-to-state negotiations," said Barb Schlaefer, director of communications for the Minnesota Office of Higher Education.

These negotiations included representatives from both Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

"Right now, the state of Minnesota and the state of Wisconsin are very happy with the agreement," said Carla Vigue, a spokesperson for Doyle, who is a Democrat.

Connie Hutchison, executive secretary for the Wisconsin Higher Educational Aids Board, said the agreement has worked and will continue to work due to the parallels between Wisconsin and Minnesota.

"We're pretty similar in educational philosophies," Hutchison said. "Minnesota and Wisconsin have a pretty long history of being proud of their educational systems — kindergarten through postsecondary."

Hutchinson added it "was a pretty ideal solution for both sides."

"We're really happy about it, and students who are participating in the agreement should be really excited about it, too," Hutchinson said.

Giroux agreed, describing the agreement as "win-win."

"It allows a broader array of choices and a much richer, more diverse selection of educational opportunities on both sides of the river," Giroux said.

Giroux added the reciprocity agreement gives Wisconsin and Minnesota residents a "richer and broader menu" of postsecondary options.

"If you come from a part of the country where those types of agreements don't exist, you understand just how valuable that it is to have not one Big Ten campus to go to, but two," Giroux said.

The new agreement will have "zero impact" on Wisconsin taxpayers, Giroux added.

According to Hutchinson, the reciprocity agreement between Wisconsin and Minnesota started in 1973 as an attempt to increase the number of post-secondary educational opportunities for students of those states. The agreement affected 27,000 students on both sides of the border in 2005 and currently affects a similar number of students.

UW System President Kevin Reilly expressed approval of the new agreement and the manner in which it was decided.

"I applaud the leadership in both states for striving to make educational opportunity the most important component in often difficult negotiations," Reilly said in a statement.