SIUC’s proposed tuition decrease for international and out-of-state students is an issue of fairness rather than economics, a University official says.

Out-of-state students can move here and pay one semester of out-of-state tuition and then establish residency in Illinois and pay in-state tuition after that. However, this isn’t an option for international students and out-of-state students who commute, Jack Dyer, executive assistant of University Relations, said. This (the proposed tuition decrease) should level the playing field.

The possibility of lower tuition will discussed at today’s Board of Trustees meeting. In-state students pay $1,350 tuition for 15 semester hours. Out-of-state and international students pay $4,050 tuition for 15 semester hours, three times the tuition rate of in-state students.

Advertisement

The board is scheduled to vote on the issue at its February meeting.

The proposed plan would create a new rate that would have out-of-state and international students paying only twice the in-state rate by the fall 1999.

The University has seen a steep decline in international student enrollment over the last few years. In fall 1994, there were 1,117 undergraduate international students enrolled at SIUC. There were 942 in fall 1995, 822 in fall 1996 and 684 in fall 1997.

Tuition is part of the reason for the dropping enrollment, SIUC Chancellor Don Beggs said. But it is impossible to pinpoint any one main reason.

The University wants to lower the tuition for international and out-of-state students to help boost enrollment and to maintain the presence of international students, especially on the Carbondale campus.

Both SIU’s Carbondale and Edwardsville campuses are investigating ways to recruit more out-of-state and international students.

The University already is planning recruitment initiatives to boost international and out-of-state enrollment. Plans have been made to send University representatives on international trips to university fairs to recruit new students.

Advertisement*

Lowering tuition also is seen as a method to help recruit more out-of-state students.

We must become more aggressive in recruitment activities in order to compete with other universities, Beggs said.

If the Board of Trustees votes in favor of the new tuition rate, students transferring from the SIUC campus in Nakajo, Japan, would pay the new tuition rate next year, a year before other international and out-of-state students would.

The cut in tuition could result in a loss of revenue for the University, but Dyer says that the increase in international and out-of-state student enrollment through increased recruiting could counteract the loss.

The University will lose tuition dollars if they reduce the tuition rate, Dyer said. But they will probably pick up enough international and out-of-state students to balance the drop in revenue.

SIUC Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost John Jackson said that University estimates that with a stable enrollment base of international students next year, the University would lose about $500,000 in revenue. It would only take 98 new international students to counteract that loss, Jackson said.

This semester there are 1,269 international students enrolled on the SIUC campus. Of this number, 684 are undergraduate students and 585 are graduate professional students, according to Admissions and Records.

We are going to work hard to present the data convincingly to the Board of Trustees, Beggs said. We have to stop this downward spiral of dropping enrollment.