Reminding Students to Apply for MN Reciprocity
In an effort to proactively inform students about the application process for Minnesota reciprocity, informative postcards are being sent to any undergraduate student with a Minnesota home address that does not have MN reciprocity as their residency status. The first batch of postcards was sent in July 2019 to approximately 600 undergrad students (new and continuing). In late June 2020, postcards were sent to approximately 400 undergrad students (new and continuing).
The purpose of the proactive approach is to inform MN residents that they may be eligible for MN reciprocity, which will allow them to pay reduced tuition. In order to be eligible for this, they must first apply and be approved through the MN Office of Higher Education. If a student has already applied but is receiving the postcard, we hope they will then contact us to resolve any potential problems and prevent incorrect tuition calculation ahead of time.
The goal is to prevent students from having an incorrect residency status and as a result pay out-of-state tuition. Since The Minnesota Office of Higher Education (MOHE) does not retroactively approve reciprocity, it is important for students and their families to be aware of the application process and associated deadlines. Additionally, in mid-July prior to tuition calculation, another email will be sent to wisc emails for MN students without MN reciprocity, as another avenue to reach students prompting them to take action.
As of Summer 2020, the RO has implemented an internal auditing process to verify all MN reciprocity applications that have been approved by MOHE are correctly updated in SIS. In the auditing process, we review the records that errored and couldn’t be automatically updated, and manually apply reciprocity to all eligible student records. This prevents incorrect tuition calculations and grievances.