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<p>I imagine that’s precisely why Illinois won’t play ball on tuition reciprocity. For many Illinois kids, especially those in and around Chicago, Madison would be a lot more attractive than Champaign-Urbana. But the boom in applications to Wisconsin wouldn’t be offset by a similar boom in applications to UIUC. UW would become a lot more selective, UIUC a lot less so. It would push in the direction of a clearer pecking order than presently exists, with UW on top;right now I’d say the two schools are pretty evenly matched. Bad deal for UIUC. I wouldn’t go for it, either.</p>
<p>Yes, Wisconsin could drop its OOS tuition, but I don’t think it could sustain the revenue loss. You said in an earlier post Wisconsin has a cap on non-resident (non-WI and non-MN) enrollment at 25%. If so, they’re already at that cap. Cut OOS tuition by $10K per capita for that 25% of the student body and you set up an intense competition for a fixed number of cut-rate OOS seats while losing millions in tuition revenue—by my calculation about a $73 million revenue loss. I don’t think UW has the revenue elsewhere in its budget to make up that shortfall. Heck, that’s almost half the tuition revenue Wisconsin currently take in from Wisconsin and Minnesota residents.</p>