A law that set out-of-state tuition at Madison Area Technical College almost as high as it is at UW-Madison has been eliminated under a change signed into law last month by Gov. Jim Doyle as part of the state budget.

Under the old law, nonresidents had to pay 100 percent of the cost of their education, or about $18,205 per year for full-time students. The state now charges about $4,521 for nonresidents, or 150 percent of what residents pay.

The cost of tuition for out-of-state students was so high that almost no one could afford to pay it, said Morna Foy, executive assistant for the Wisconsin Technical College System. Although technical colleges are primarily for local students, some colleges — especially those on the state’s borders — need to attract students from across state lines to fulfill demand from employers, she said.

“The prices we were charging before, people weren’t coming,” she said. “We’re not losing revenue, because we weren’t really generating revenue.”

There were 188 full-time students who paid nonresident tuition in 2006-07, according to the most recent statistics available from the technical college system. Total nonresident tuition accounted for less than 1.3 percent of all program fee revenue received by the state’s 16 technical colleges that academic year.

Technical college officials say they need an increase in enrollment of 358 full-time, nonresident students to make up the difference, which they feel confident they can do, Foy said.

Wisconsin has reciprocity agreements with Minnesota, Michigan and a handful of other Midwestern states that already allow students from those states to attend Wisconsin technical colleges for 150 percent of resident tuition. But students from Illinois and Iowa were not eligible because those states do not participate in the exchange program.

At Southwest Wisconsin Technical College in Fennimore, near the borders of Iowa and Illinois, the tuition change could help instructors fill out IT classes and the machine tool program, fields in which employers are looking for graduates.

A.Y. McDonald, for instance, a water systems manufacturer located in Dubuque, Iowa, hires graduates of the machine tool program. But Dubuque residents would either need to pay out-of-state tuition at Southwest Tech, or travel 90 miles for the next closest program.

The program isn’t full, said Derek Dachelet, spokesman for Southwest Tech, and Wisconsin residents still would get priority under the new law.

“We have been increasing our marketing in the tri-state area to a limited degree,” Dachelet said. “We are stepping up efforts to let people know we’re open for business across the river.”

2009-2010 tuition at Wisconsin’s technical colleges

Old law

• Nonresidents pay $606.85 per credit

• Residents pay $100.45 per credit

New law

• Nonresidents pay $150.70 per credit

• Residents pay $100.45 per credit