Students in the UW System no longer have the right to be told if their chosen program’s tuition differential will be increased due to a vote held by the Board of Regents.
Tuition differentials are the rates added on after the base tuition has been applied to a student’s bill. The differentials are seen in the programs that are in high demand or that have a high overhead.
At UW-Platteville in 2022-2023, the base tuition for a resident full-time student (12-18 credits) is $3,209.04 per semester, though this rate goes up based on the student’s residency or if they are pursuing graduate school.
However, the dairy science program at UW-Platteville is $3,459.04, an extra $250 more than the base tuition for any other program. Before the policy reversal, dairy science students at UW-Platteville would have been required to be notified of this increase from the base pay.
According to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Every UW institution except for UW-Parkside has a tuition differential for at least one of its programs. All 12 universities requested increases this school year, with some increases as much as $1,000.”
The original policy made in 1999 required students to be informed if their program will have an increase in tuition by the university. This process gave them a voice in the decision process before the tuition could be raised.
The meeting book from the Universities of Wisconsin describes the different policies that have been changed based on tuition. “Institution-wide differential tuition rates were established at several UW universities, largely to address bottleneck courses, various programmatic needs such as advising and financial aid … The proposal continues to allow program-specific tuition rates for high-cost and high-demand programs, though student involvement would not be required,” the meeting book stated.
This policy is now currently in place for the 2024-2025 academic year. There has been no recorded reason for the policy change from the Universities of Wisconsin.