The percent of state aid coming to UW-Madison has dropped over the years, but the university is still doing a little better than the average of its peers when it comes to the state dollars spent directly on students, according to data from the Chronicle of Higher Education. In the 2008 fiscal year, UW-Madison got about $8,600 per student, compared with an average of $8,400 at the nation?s major public research universities, the Chronicle reported. The amount of aid per student given to UW-Madison declined by 7 percent in five years.