An Economic Opportunity: Removing Barriers to Higher Education in Wisconsin

With Wisconsin’s unemployment rate at a near-record low, businesses across the state are facing worker shortages that limit their ability to grow and compete. To address this challenge, it is imperative that state policies leverage local talent by increasing access to higher education. Wisconsin stands to benefit from restoring access to in-state tuition for thousands of potential college graduates—specifically, undocumented students who have grown up in the state and graduated from Wisconsin’s high schools. While these students were granted access to in-state tuition in 2009, in 2011 that access was repealed through Assembly Bill 40, and they have been ineligible to pay the in-state tuition rate at public colleges and universities, putting the cost of higher education out of reach for many of them.

New American Economy’s new research finds that if residency requirements were changed, it could lead to $4.3 million in state and local tax revenue and $29 million in spending power that could be reinvested in the Wisconsin economy each year. The additional students who could potentially enroll in and complete college as a result of a change in Wisconsin’s law would earn millions of dollars in additional income—translating into meaningful financial benefits for all of the state’s residents.

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