A national personal finance magazine ranked the University of Wisconsin 14th last week in terms of affordability in public universities.
According to Jane Clark, senior associate editor for Kiplinger Magazine, the study is conducted annually. Rankings are drawn from a national pool and determined by factors including academic test scores, admission and retention rates, student-faculty ratios and graduation rates.
“After we take into account the academic criteria for each school, we rank them based on cost before and after the addition of financial aid,” Clark said. “However, the academic standards have a heavier weighting than the cost criteria. Academic standards make up about two-thirds of the total weight.”
Brian Mattmiller, a UW spokesperson, said UW traditionally has ranked high in terms of affordability.
UW is second only to the University of Iowa as having the lowest tuition in the Big Ten systems. Mattmiller said policy makers need to be conscious of the factors in order to maintain affordability.
“I am part of the UW System, and I think that affordability is true pretty much across the board. Two other system campuses are ranked with UW-La Crosse at 38 and UW-Eau Claire at 65. I think having three in the top 100 really says something about the UW System and Wisconsin as a whole,” Mattmiller added.
According to Noel Radomski, director of the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education, Wisconsin has historically adopted a low tuition philosophy.
Radomski said the total average in-state cost for UW is at $16,000. This cost is $2,000 higher than the in-state tuition for the University of North Carolina, which ranked first in the study.
He attributed this cost difference to private fundraising and public aid initiatives that North Carolina has been developing for years.
“North Carolina has for a number of years worked with the Carolina Covenant, a private fundraising organization, which has increased the access rate of first-year students,” Radomski said. “This is where we are losing out.”
According to Radomski, the average median income for a student at UW is much higher than that of the average family living in Wisconsin. North Carolina was able to anticipate this gap and develop programs accordingly.
“Carolina saw this coming for the last 10 years and has been working on [developing programs] hard. UW is starting to do this, but we have years to catch up,” Radomski said.
Clark said about 80 other higher education institutions have adopted some form of the Carolina Covenant. In doing so, these schools are trying to distribute more grant aid as opposed to loan aid in order to draw in a greater number of low-income students.
According to Radomski, the promotion of affordability and accessibility go hand-in-hand.
“Wisconsin views secondary education as a form of social mobility,” Radomski said. “We believe that we should provide access because it is our hope that our kids have a chance at a better life than we did. That has been part of an effort since Wisconsin was founded.”
