Students from Illinois and Iowa who attend the University of Wisconsin’s Farm and Industry Short Course will now pay the same tuition as students from Minnesota, UW officials said Monday.

Students from those states who attend will pay $4,518 instead of the usual out-of-state tuition of $10,097, according to the Farm and Industry Short Course website.

“[The tuition cut] was for the purpose of making the program more accessible for students in both Iowa and Illinois,” said Dan Schaefer, an assistant CALS dean.

Schaefer said the policy change will increase the pool of students interested in attending the Farm and Industry Short Course, and added he believes the policy change is a wonderful step for UW.

Ted Halbach, director of CALS, said he proposed the decrease after he received a number of requests from people in those states who wanted to apply but could not due to their financial situations.

This motivated Halbach to request reciprocity tuition to both the deans of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Farmitive Industry Committee, which Halbach said was approved.

The program starts in November and consists of three terms, which Halbach said total 15-weeks of instruction.

Each year 130-140 students participate in the program, which is a “strong enrollment number,” Halbach said.

Currently a total of only four students are enrolled in the program, and Halbach does not know how many will participate. Students still have time to apply, as the deadline for application is Oct. 1.

UW will greatly benefit from this program, Halbach said, because they will hopefully receive more applications from qualified candidates who could not afford to apply before.

The program is now in its 126th year, but it was not until this past summer that they decided to go ahead with tuition cuts.

The short course benefits CALS in particular because it makes their instructional expertise accessible to students who will be interested in a program in agriculture and might not otherwise attend a post secondary school, Schaefer said.

“I think it is a good move because it will help us attain our goal of 140 students, and increase the academic quality of the applicant pool,” Schaefer said.