Dive Brief:
- The University of Minnesota will raise tuition by 10% next year for new out-of-state students who don't have reciprocity agreements, according to the Twin Cities Pioneer Press, continuing to reverse a steep cut made a decade ago. Current nonresident tuition will increase 5.5%. It has not yet discussed rates for in-state students.
- Nonresident tuition has climbed by 49% in the last four years, and some blame those increases on a drop-off in out-of-state students. The university had 348 fewer nonresident freshmen enroll this fall, translating to $4.8 million in lost revenue.
- The university is also weighing a $1,000 surcharge for some new undergraduates in the College of Science and Engineering and some science fields in the College of Liberal Arts, which officials say could raise $9 million annually. Other Big Ten institutions have such a surcharge.
Dive Insight:
The university tripled its enrollment of out-of-state students following a steep cut in their tuition in 2008. Its nonresident tuition is still one of the lowest among Big Ten Conference institutions. But the slow reversal of that decision reflects the debate within universities over the need to balance the income and national standing those students bring with the desire to keep costs low for in-state students.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the number of out-of-state students this year reached its highest level in at least a decade, but the university is also implementing a plan to increase their nonresident undergrads' tuition by $10,000 over four years.
Several other public institutions are raising nonresident rates. For example, the Penn State Board of Trustees in July approved a budget that kept in-state undergraduate tuition flat while raising nonresident undergraduate tuition by an aggregate 3.54%. Clemson University raised tuition by 1.75% for in-state undergrads and by 3% for those from outside South Carolina. And the University of Massachusetts increased undergraduate nonresident tuition by 3%, slightly more than the 2.5% increase for in-state undergraduates.
Meanwhile, the University of Iowa increased tuition for in-state undergraduates by 3.8% to $7,770 and increased that group's out-of-state tuition by just 2.1%, to $29,736. Oglethorpe University, in Atlanta, will offer out-of-state students the same tuition rate they'd pay in their home state in an apparent effort to increase their numbers on campus.