Non-resident students currently make up approximately 22 percent of the undergraduate student population at UW-Madison.
After Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois, New York and California are the two most represented states among the undergraduate student population and since the fall of 2003-'04, student representation from California has increased by 160 students, according to numbers provided by the Office of the Registrar.
According to Director of Admissions Rob Seltzer, up to 25 percent of the undergraduate student population can be non-residents.
This percentage cap, set by the Board of Regents, excludes Minnesota residents because they pay in-state tuition, he said.
According to the UW System Budget update, which includes all UW System institutions, non-resident students pay 186 percent of the actual cost of their education. This adds up to more than $26 million, money that subsidizes the tuition of 5,200 students from Wisconsin each year.
Seltzer said students from the East and West Coasts are not surprised by the higher tuition.
'They are really focused on good education and are used to spending high fees because many students on the East Coast go to private colleges, so there is not so much 'sticker shock' when they look at our non-residency tuition,' he said.
According to Seltzer, the tuition generated from non-residency tuition is helpful because it helps to control the cost for Wisconsin residents, but this is not the primary motivation behind recruiting students from outside the Midwest.
'We are trying to improve the education for all undergraduates and we believe that part of your education is learning about differences among people and their attitudes and beliefs,' said Seltzer. 'That's tied to what part of the country they come from.'
Casey Nagy, special assistant to Chancellor John Wiley, agrees with that reasoning.
'Without that representation of difference then you would have a much more regional education, and the educational experience here for the students would be dramatically lessened,' Nagy said.
According to Seltzer, UW-Madison recruits from East Coast high schools due in large part to alumni who reside there.
'We have wonderful alumni in the D.C. and Los Angeles areas and so we are doing more kinds of events now in those two areas than we were three to five years ago,' he said.
Seltzer said another element that recruits out of state students is a winning sports team.
'We certainly see, year after year, very strong appeal in different sections of the country,' Nagy said. 'I think that does reflect that we are very competitive for students seeking a high-quality education.'
According to UW-Madison freshman and Maryland native Matt Haven, 13 students from his high school class came to the university this year. He said his visit to campus was the most important factor in deciding which school to attend, with the only negative being the weather, not the tuition.
'I had a couple of [older] friends who went to Michigan and they said if I liked Michigan, I would like it here,' he said. 'I visited both and I liked it here.'
