Home > Gazette > May 2007

Tuition Differential for Undergraduate Business Program Wins Regent Approval

In April, the UW Board of Regents approved the School of Business differential tuition proposal. Beginning in fall 2007 undergraduate business majors will pay an additional $500 per semester and Certificate in Business  students will pay $150 more per semester.

A significant portion of the new revenues, 25%, will go toward maintaining an affordable program through financial aid to students. The remaining 75% will be used to maintain the program’s high quality, allowing the School of Business to attract and retain quality faculty members, hire additional staff to support student recruiting, academic advising, and career preparation missions, and to grow the Certificate in Business program.
 
“For several years we have maintained our program through increased contributions from alumni and surpluses from our part-time MBA programs. But now we have reached a point where we must ask students to carry a larger share of the burden,” says Dean Michael Knetter.   

UW-Madison is not in a unique situation in terms of financing options for the increasing costs of business education. Other Big Ten schools already have a tuition differential for undergraduate business majors (except for Northwestern which doesn’t have an undergraduate business program and the University of Minnesota, which has direct control over tuition revenue.) Within the UW System, UW-Milwaukee’s undergraduate business program has had a tuition differential in place for three years.

The UW-Madison proposal was developed with collective input from UW-Madison campus leadership, the Undergraduate Business Leadership Council (UBLC), School of Business alumni via the Dean’s Advisory Board, and School of Business faculty and staff.   

“Tuition differential will be an important tool in maintaining the quality of our undergraduate business education,” says Dean Michael Knetter.