Wouldnt colleges prefer to receive a higher tuition from OOS students?
Why are most public colleges so much harder to get into as OOS (UCs, UVA, etc), why are the requirements higher?
Do public universities have to meet a certain percentage?
Sorry I’m just very curious.
Public schools were created to serve the residents of their state. They are supported to a greater or lesser extent by taxes paid by residents of that state.
Yes-- but up to a certain number.
Because they can be picky, they raise the bar for OOS.
Yes – a portion of their funding comes from the taxes collected from that state’s residents. It’s to be an investment into the future welfare of that state.
That’s why they are called “state” universities.
This is like asking why food banks give away food, when they could make more money by selling the food.
That’s the whole point of them.
North Carolina is a good example of how a state regulates university population. Because the state (ie, the taxpayers living in the state), provide financial support to the university system, state law prohibits enrolling more than 18% from out-of-state. That guarantees that 82% of the spots are available to dependents of taxpayers in the state.
Different states have different requirements. But most public universities were founded to serve the citizens of their state first. Yes, higher out-of-state tuition is great, but not if it crowds out the taxpayers dependents.
My tax dollars help support the state universities in my state. So do my sister’s, even though she has no kids. So do my neighbor’s, even though her only child went to private schools and a private university.
Public schools are tax funded. So it makes sense that they give overwhelming priority-- and tuition breaks-- to the people who are already paying to keep them open.
Beside financial support from state government (which can be big or small), public colleges also enjoy the property tax break. Even some public colleges are not regulated in percentage of OOS students, they are overseen by an elected board that need to be responsible to the voters.
Even private colleges generally get property tax breaks. Every time NYU or Columbia gobble up real estate, people howl about the tax rolls.
And a school like Michigan actually needs the OOS kids to subsidize the in state because the state does not provide enough aid for them. They should just go private IMO. Then there are schools weeding out in staters to try to pull in more OOS money (SUNY systems).
All I can say for sure is that without a state school system, I would not have been able to afford a 4 year college.
UMich would not go private. It need to amend the state constitution to do that and the school will be responsible for property tax. The $400 millions additional income by charging all students OOS rate would be offset by the lost of state fund and eligible property tax almost completely. Pfizer paid ~$24 million property tax for the Ann Arbor location each year while it is ~1/5 the size of UMich campus. UMich’s received $173 millions from Michigan in 2012. It is already run like a private anyway and now they only have ~56% in state students. OOS tuition is 3 times of in state. That would be their business model as long as there are still a lot of OOS students interested in UMich. Obviously, it is very popular as the OOS admission rate is near 20%.
In Massachusetts private universities do not pay property tax. Is Michigan law different?
@TomSrOfBoston What makes you think different states would have the same state law? Even charter schools needed to pay property tax in Michigan until 2011.
@billcsho I didn’t know. That’s why I asked. Thank you for the answer.
So say the University of Detroit Mercy pays full property taxes to the city of Detroit?
At many UC campuses, OOS students have a better chance of admission:
http://www.ucop.edu/news/factsheets/2014/fall-2014-admissions-table2.pdf
You are making assumptions that are not always correct. The better state universities can be very choosy about which OOS students they accept. Weaker state university systems have a difficult time attracting OOS. The higher tuition isn’t the only or even most important reason state universities like attracting OOS. The extent to which universities attract OOS reflects the quality of that university. Attracting strong OOS can improve the quality of the student body. Attracting OOS helps establish a school as desirable/excellent. But, some systems can 't attract OOS because they simply aren’t very good. In fact, in those states the strongest students tend to prefer the better OOS schools to the schools in their own state-thus there is an exodus of the better students to other states. SUNY is a system like that. It does not attract OOS in the numbers that they’d like and so an OOS actually has a better chance at gaining admission than a NY student with similar credentials. The strongest NY students often prefer places like Michigan, Wisconsin, and others with better schools. If you have visited a SUNY and one of the flagships of the states with good schools you’d quickly see why the top students might prefer not attending a SUNY. It does not take much digging to see the difference.
Regarding the comment about CA UC’s. Yes, it may be easier to get into a UC from OOS, but less OOS applicants apply so less competition vs in-state, Also there are higher requirements for OOS applicants vs in-state, so average GPA and test dcores tend to be higher than In-state.
OOS yield is also an important factor for the UCs:
“Because the yield rate of domestic nonresident admits tends to be lower than for California resident admits, a campus must admit proportionally more domestic nonresident applicants to achieve a target for actual enrollees.”
And for other public universities such as UWashington:
Think about the population of California. There are simply way many more in state students than OOS students applying to UC. A higher admission rate for OOS does not mean it is easier to be admitted with the same credential as they are mostly self selected (financially and academically).
^ Yes, for those reasons it’s apparent why the stats of the average OOS applicant are higher.