Dive Brief:
- The University of Wisconsin-Madison is responding to competitive pressure from other states' flagship institutions by increasing its merit aid allotment for talented in-state students and high-performing out-of-staters it wants to recruit.
- New America Foundation’s Stephen Burd writes for The Hechinger Report that this is bad for all of public higher education — where the practice is increasingly common — as low-income and working-class students see less money for their own seats at state schools.
- UW-Madison won a waiver from the system’s Board of Regents in October to temporarily ignore a cap on out-of-state students, which could further disadvantage less-privileged students who live in-state and attend less-impressive high schools — a reality that Burd says other state systems should be wary of, too.
Dive Insight:
Public higher education systems have taken serious hits in state funding since the recession, when tight budgets left little room for discretionary spending. While funding of the K-12 system is often enshrined in state law, postsecondary institutions are generally forced to take the leftovers, which in recent years have been far from enough. Alaska and North Dakota are the only two states that spend at least as much on higher education now, per student, than they did before the recession, according to an analysis by the Young Invincibles.
A slow, upward trend is evident in postsecondary financing, however, as 36 states are spending more this year than last year.
The problem for flagships, of course, is that they are competing against high-performing private institutions. Out-of-state students, even with merit aid, pay more than their in-state peers to attend the institutions and they are increasingly being tapped as revenue sources, much like international students.