It looks as if the Badgers are not going to leave any stones unturned in their attempt to get Ben Brust. The school may petition the the Big Ten for a waiver that would allow Brust to sign with Wisconsin. They are also looking into giving him a partial academic scholarship if the waiver is rejected.
You are aware that the BT has already rejected the request for a waiver? That it doesn't matter what position the u of Iowa takes in respect to the waiver? (Iowa can release him from his LOI per NCAA rules; Iowa--and Wisky--are subject to the long-standing BT rule that one school cannot extend an athletic schollie to a student-athlete who has previous sought & obtained an athletic schollie at another BT member institution.)
While any college or university has the autonomy to extend a "merit" scholarship to a student in an amount of money exceeding the determination of "need" based on the FAF (financial aid form) that student submitted to ETS or ACT, an institution that offers "merit"-based aid beyond the "need" monetary figure should be EXTREMELY cautious in any instance where the suspicion might arise that the student's "merit" had some possible relationship to his/her athletic ability (one explicit evidence of athletic ability would be if that student submitted his HS transcript to the NCAA's Center on Initial Eligibility--once the student has been recruited actively as an athlete, he/she cannot subsequently seek & receive an academic schollie; he/she can qualify for student financial aid (Pell grants loans, work-study, etc) only on the same basis an all other students; and any program trying to get around this would be hit by the NCAA with severe penalties for a "serious major violation". Not that any AD with a brain in his head would attempt it: the FAF program operates under the guidance and within the terms set by the federal government, and no college or university administration would knowingly allow such loose-cannon behavior by its athletic dept).
An illustration of how this works was the circumstances under which Kyle Galloway was able to play basketball at Iowa. BEFORE Galloway would have begun the process of obtaining NCAA initial eligibility he was awarded a prestigious "merit-based" four-year academic scholarship at the U of Iowa--he was named a "Presidential Scholar". Since Galloway thus was not seeking an athletic scholarship, his status was that of any student who wants to "walk on"--and since he had been offered and accepted the Presidential schollie PRIOR to overt efforts by Iowa to recruit him for basketball, Tom Davis was free to recruit him as a walk-on from the moment Galloway accepted admission to Iowa. Which meant Galloway did not count against the 13-scholarship player limit for men's basketball other than in any single game Davis would have to withhold from play one of the players on an athletic schollie.
Without knowing the financial circumstances of the Brust family it is impossible to estimate accurately hat financial aid Brust could receive at Wisky compared to the value of his athletic schollie at Iowa (or some non-BT school)--but we can guess that the difference would amount to a very considerable sum, in excess of a $100,000 over four/five years (depending on whether he would redshirt a year)
The FAF determines what financial aid he is eligible for based on need. At Wisky, as at Iowa, the normal financial aid package is a combination of sources, beginning with a Pell Grant, plus work-study and loans (under the new Obama procedures, the federal govt underwrites loans--other than state loan programs, plus specific institutional grants or other funding). In practice, since the days of Lyndon Johnson & Richard Nixon, the long trend has been to replace federal grants with loans.
Brust, as a resident of Illinois, would pay out-of-state tuition at either Iowa or Wisky (except of course at Iowa the athletic dept would pay it as well as room & board, fees, travel, etc while at Wisky he would pay everything himself...helped out by whatever grants/loans he qualifies for on the basis of "need"). Bear in mind that non-resident tuition & fees are considerably higher at Wisky than Iowa where they are the lowest in the BT. If Brust family is affluent enough that his FAF determination is that he is not eligible for ANY financial aid, if he were to attend Wisky the cost over five years would be roughly $200,000 more than five years at Iowa on an athletic schollie. At the other extreme, if the Brusts have such a modest income & wealth that he would qualify for a "full" aid package, the components of that package would include roughly $20,000 to $25,000 a year in loans.
Meaning Brust finishes college with about a hundred grand in debt if he attends Wisky, but debt-free upon graduation from Iowa (or some non-BT NCAA-member college or university he attends on an athletic schollie).
Maybe the family is wealthy enough that it can afford for young Brust to attend Wisky IF it is his heart's desire; otherwise the economic facts of life suggest that he will play somewhere other than Madison.
. But although Brust's waiver has been denied by the BT, this is about Wisconsin having a petition with the BT for a waiver for Brust to play for Wisconsin on scholarship.
