<p>Yeah, Illinois said it was to “preserve their institution for their own residents,” but obviously it had more to do with the fact a tuition reciprocity would overwhelmingly benefit Wisconsin and probably even hurt Illinois. You would never have Wisconsin kids excited at going to a school a few hours south of Chicago. </p>
<p>Which is why I think its such a great idea to drop the OOS tuition to around the Minnesota level. I believe UIUC is already one of the priciest in-state universities in the Big 10, so if UW dropped their tuition down to 15 or 14k, with what they already have in prestige, they would immediately begin turning lots of heads in Illinois and all throughout the US, especially the east coasters applying to Michigan/PSU/etc. If they would then move the OOS cap to around 40% or so, the revenue loss probably wouldn’t be so great, you’d immediately become more a lot more selective and world-class, and so on. I suppose at some point you really have to ask the question how important having a highly ranked undergraduate program is, though… especially if its costing you tens of millions in revenue.</p>
<p>Is UMN able to bear the loss in OOS revenue, or like Madison’s economy, were they just starting from a small base, and thus just about anything would actually increase revenue?</p>