Article about OOS recruiting by major state Us.

Lots of good data. Link to original study too.

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2019/03/26/study-finds-public-universities-focus-out-state-recruitment-high

No surprise. A state university has a capacity limit of subsidized (discounted tuition and in state FA) state resident students based on the subsidy it gets from the state. If it has more physical capacity than the number of subsidized state resident students it can educate, it is not a surprise that it can try to fill it with non-resident students who pay as much as or more than the cost of educating them.

Other options (not mutually exclusive to recruiting non-resident students or each other):
A. Increase in state costs to students, spreading the subsidy thinner across more state resident students.
B. Economize more by cutting back student services, increasing class sizes, etc.
C. Lobby for more funding from the state. Obviously competes with other state spending and desires to keep taxes low.
D. Look for other revenue sources (research, donations, other services it can provide).

The article fails to mention that the states sending the most students are a Illinois, New Jersey, and others that choose to shut out their own residents with high in state tuition, merit scholarships tied to income, etc. We are n Illinois, and our state mainly DOES serve low income and minority students with its public colleges. The problem is they shut out the middle and lower ranks of the upper middle. We can’t afford private, can’t afford our publics for all three kids. Alabama’s generous merit was a godsend.

The article failed to mention that Alabama has frozen in state tuition and raised OOS tuition. Alabama has many more universities than just the flagship.

Based on the IL state universities’ NPCs, students from low income families are only likely to be able to afford those which they happen to live close enough to commute to.

For IL resident, one in college (economics major), living on campus (commuter shown for those in high population areas), family of three, EFC = $0 with income < $30,000:

CSU $16k ($8k commuter)
NEIU $14k ($8k commuter)
NIU $17k
SIU-C $12k
UIC $13k ($7k commuter)
UIUC $13k

Since the flagship UIUC is not commutable for much of the state of IL population, it is unlikely to be affordable for much of the state of IL population.

@elodyCOH , actually, I’m quite certain that UIUC is filled with kids from families that pay the full in-state rate.

Also, NJ publics’ in-state prices aren’t particularly high compared to other states in the (higher COL) Northeast. But NJ is quite wealthy and families there seem quite willing to splurge on privates and OOS publics.

While Alabama is mostly known on these forums for its big scholarships for higher stat frosh applicants, most students there are not big scholarship students. It looks like about a quarter new frosh hit the 32 ACT for full tuition scholarships (but a 3.5 HS GPA is also needed), so lots of students are paying significant tuition there (two thirds of students are out-of-state, where list price is about $48k).

Alabama’s NPC says that a non-scholarship in-state student with EFC = $0 will see a net price of about $23k.

Purple Titan - many Illinois students have left the state, close to 50% last year. More do CC than go to UIUC in my area.

NJ state colleges are not cheap (4th most expensive in US) and do not have the best rankings outside of Rutgers. NJ has the most student exports and least amount of imports, making it fact more NJ students are leaving NJ for other colleges.

@HappyNJOOS, I’d like to see your source.

@elodyCOH, yes. Not everyone can go to UIUC. Not everyone can afford UIUC but not everyone can get in either. In every big state with a major flagship, I daresay that almost everywhere, more people go to CC than to that flagship. That is, more people go to CC than UMich/OSU/PSU/UT-Austin/UF in MI/OH/PA/TX/FL respectively.
That still doesn’t contradict what I said (that much of UIUC’s student body would be in-state full-pay).

@PurpleTitan is correct - the median income of families is about $110,000, which would be full pay in Illinois, so at least 1/2 of the UIUC student body would be full pay. FA isn’t all that generous, either. Room and board are never covered, nor are any other expenses except tuition, so the CoA is never lower than $15,000 a year, which is still to much for a family in the bottom 40%, making less than $30,000 a year. Class of 2022 was almost 77% Illinois residents.

As for who can get in, although acceptance rate into UIUC is high, at about 66%, the mid range of SATs and GPAs is similar to Minnesota, which has an acceptance rate of 45%. So there is a lot of either self-selection, or GC activity. There are, however, a large number of other public colleges, including 3 other research universities (UIC, NIU, and SIUC).

At UIUC:
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=University+of+ill&s=all&pg=2&id=145637#finaid

24% of Freshman receive Pell grants. 21% of undergraduates.i*
Average Net price (2016-2017) was $16,638
Average Net price for family with <$30,000 income = $8,357
Average Net price for family with >$110,000 income =$27,888

UIUC may have around a 66% acceptance rate, by admission rate can vary by major.Engineering, for example, is very competitive. Also, they offer admissions to a lot of OOS/international students, which drives down the yield (which in turn drives up the acceptance rate).

@PurpleTitan - There were a few sources, but this one is the best because it gives data outside of NJ as well. It shows to import/export of students across all states. Intriguing data.

https://www.philly.com/philly/education/new-jersey-high-school-students-exodus-out-of-state-colleges-legislation-20180728.html

Here is a graph of state college costs.

https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/2018-19-tuition-and-fees-flagship-universities-and-five-year-percentage-change

NJ is near the top.

The problem in NJ is that Rutgers, while a great school, is very large. It is spread out over several campuses and kids have to bus in between. That is different than say Penn State (which seems really attractive to many NJ kids) which is just as large, but one big campus. The Penn State reputation of great football and lots of fun is what distinguises it from Rutgers. But kids that actually go to Rutgers generally like it and do well. Rutgers is still where most good students end up for financial or other reasons. Many kids apply and get into excellent privates or OOS publics but the cost can be a huge factor, even though Rutgers is pricey.

Odd that NJ parents would pay a lot more to send their kids to a place with more football spectator activity and a reputation for more drinking, rowdier fraternities, and scandals that hit the news.

I am an IL resident. D19 is ACT 34 and w/GPA 4.18 or something. Tons of APs and ECs etc.

D19 had heard last year from friends that UIUC didn’t give much money for scholarships. One friend got the same or less COA at Purdue as UIUC and went to Purdue.

While learning about the whole college process and merit money I quickly realized that UIUC was not going to be the best option for D19 even though we are in-state. D19 didn’t apply to UIUC but I doubt the COA would have been lower than many other options. On the UIUC site IL residents have a COA of $31.4-36.4K depending on their major. D19 might have gotten $5K in merit money. D19 has a handful of schools that have a COA of $17-21K per year.

It is easy to see why kids are leaving IL. Many OOS schools are coming to IL and taking the high stat kids.

NJ kids have gone OOS for college as a right of passage for generations. Getting away is a big part of that.

“Odd that NJ parents would pay a lot more to send their kids to a place with more football spectator activity and a reputation for more drinking, rowdier fraternities, and scandals that hit the news.”

Are you being ironic??

@mom2and and @HappyNJOOS, as I noted, the Northeast (really, the NE corridor states, so VA up to MA and NH) are a high COL area, and compared to fellow NE corridor states, NJ publics have pretty reasonable in-state prices, with 6 NE states with more expensive in-state tuition than NJ and 3 with less expensive in-state tuition (and 2 of those 3 are tiny DE and RI).

It’s disingenuous to compare NJ to states where there are more cows than people, the median income/cost of labor is a fraction of the NJ median income/cost of labor, or the cost of land is a small fraction of NJ’s real estate costs and say “look, NJ publics are expensive!” (Unless you’re actually willing to move to those states).

However, Rutgers may be too expensive for a non-merit-scholarship NJ student from a low income family (NPC says $15k resident, $12k commuter). But these students do not have the option of paying list price at an out-of-state public university like those from high income families often do.

@Gator88NE Look at UIUC’s admissions site. I’m an IL resident, and my kid applied, so we figured out the cost. We would have paid less, since my wife works for the system, and we would have paid 1/2 tuition. @gpo613 is correct. My kid applied to both UIUC and UMN EA, and before she canceled both, UMN was already throwing money at her, to get her to come. UIUC recommended that she apply for one of the handful of merit awards available, and hope for the best. The only university which has increasing enrollment in IL is UIC.