South Dakota students going to U of M will have continuing reciprocity rates

Students graduating from South Dakota high schools this spring and attending college at a University of Minnesota campus this fall will have some form of continuing reciprocity rates when they start college.

That’s according to interim University of Minnesota President Jeff Ettinger shortly after it was announced that South Dakota students looking to attend college in Minnesota would no longer receive tuition reciprocity there, since a longstanding shared tuition discount agreement ended months ago.

Ettinger said at a University of Minnesota Board of Regents earlier this month that South Dakota was the one to announce they’d be ending the reciprocity agreement with Minnesota.

In December, the South Dakota Board of Regents expanded its Advantage program to extend the in-state tuition rate to Minnesota, among other states. In order to include Minnesota in the program, the longstanding reciprocity agreement between the two states ended, SDBOR communications director Shuree Mortenson told the Argus Leader earlier this month.

“We were not sure how Minnesota would respond to the end of the agreement,” Mortenson said. “Minnesota sets the tuition rates for South Dakota students; this is not something the South Dakota Board of Regents controls.”

Despite the change, current South Dakota students will have their reciprocity rates continued through graduation at the U of M, and incoming undergraduate students in the Twin Cities will receive a non-resident tuition waiver for four years, or three years for transfer students, Ettinger said.

Earlier: South Dakota students going to college in Minnesota no longer get tuition reciprocity

This is “excellent news” to Anna Hakeman and her daughter, who’s a senior at Roosevelt High School and plans to attend the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities this fall to study biology.

Hakeman said after Ettinger’s announcement in the Regents’ meeting, she learned her daughter was being offered a tuition waiver for the next four years, allowing her to pay Minnesota’s in-state tuition rates.

The University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities is the eighth most popular postsecondary choice for Sioux Falls School District graduates, with about 194 there from the classes of 2015-2022, according to initial enrollment records in a district postsecondary report from Sept. 25, 2023 board minutes.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: South Dakota students at U of M will get continuing reciprocity