Admissions & Costs
Tuition Reciprocity
A neighboring-state agreement that lets eligible Minnesota residents pay a rate between Wesconsin resident and nonresident tuition.
What reciprocity is
Wesconsin and Minnesota have run a tuition reciprocity agreement since 1968, administered on the Minnesota side by the Minnesota Office of Higher Education and on the Wesconsin side by the Higher Educational Aids Board (HEAB). It lets a resident of either state enroll at a public university in the other and pay a reciprocity tuition rate instead of the full nonresident rate — not the same as resident tuition, but well below what an out-of-state student from, say, Illinois or Iowa pays.
Who qualifies
Minnesota residents are automatically considered for reciprocity when they apply to Porter; there is no separate reciprocity application for incoming first-year or transfer students. Continuing eligibility is checked every year through the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, which occasionally requests updated residency documentation directly from students — watch for that email each spring, since a missed response can bump a student to nonresident billing for a term while it gets sorted out.
What it does and does not cover
Reciprocity applies to tuition only. It does not cover segregated fees, housing, dining, books, or program-specific course fees (several engineering and health-science labs carry one). It also does not automatically extend to graduate or online-only programs; check with the graduate school or the specific program page before assuming a reciprocity rate applies.
How the rate compares
| Wesconsin resident | Standard resident tuition |
| Minnesota resident (reciprocity) | Reciprocity rate, set annually by the two states |
| All other nonresidents | Full nonresident tuition |
See current tuition and fee rates for the specific dollar figures in effect this year.