USU decides how to cope with HB331
With the new legislation complicating student residency requirements, several campus programs are facing serious changes as they try to accommodate students as well as the new policy.
Success, which formerly was a program for first-year, out-of-state students and was geared to getting freshmen through general education requirements in a collegial residential environment offering in-state residency after one year, has undergone a few changes.
“As for the future of Success, it will now be a two-year program,” intern director of Success Heather Thomas said.
Thomas said the program allowed for out-of-state students to come to Utah State University, live in the towers and form learning communities for $7,900 a year which includes meals, room and tuition.
After their first year, Thomas said students typically get residency and move to apartment-style housing, however, now it will just be an additional year at the same fee.
“We’re hopeful,” Thomas said. “Success has been a positive program and will continue to be. We are just trying to deal with the new requirements.”
Thomas said Success, now in its fourth year, has students from 42 states. She said they are now trying to focus a little more on recruiting more from the Eastern states.
She said even though the new policy was somewhat of a blow for students it still does not make it as difficult to get residency as other stats. In some it isn’t even an option.
However, Thomas said she is concerned about the students who are now currently in the program.
“These student came into the program more or less under a contract that they will get residency,” Thomas said.
She said they are hopeful that accommodations will be made for a smoother transition for students who joined Success under the old policy.
Scholarships through the Recruitment and Enrollment departments will be undergoing a few changes as well. Eric Olsen, director of Recruitment and Enrollment, said the main scholarship the new residency requirements will affect is the ISU-USU Scholarship where the out-of-state portion of tuition is waved in that first year.
Olsen said in past years the department has given out 150 of those, however now it will be a two-year scholarship which means the number of awards will have to be cut in half.
Olsen also said transfer students will be hit hard. Now that residency cannot be obtained as easily, he is concerned the numbers of transfer students will drop severely.
He said the department has had a few people call and have been angry at the changes.
“Historically it seems like it has always been there, and now people have just come to expect it,” he said
Even though a few scholarships will have to be cut, Olsen said they still are doing the most they can.
“We don’t want students to feel like we don’t value them or don’t want them, we just can’t fund them,” Olsen said.
Olsen said he hopes enrollment doesn’t go down even though out-of-state recruitment will be a bit more difficult. He said they will just have to start recruiting in other markets. Olsen said that in other states such as California the resident tuition rates are as high or higher than Utah’s non-resident fees, and in states like Texas, gaining residency isn’t even an option. They are hopeful they will be able to successfully recruit in states like those.
“I wish it never would have passed, but I am glad that they are going to do something to accommodate for the transition,” he said.
Everardo Martinez-Inzunza, director of Multicultural Student Services, said the new legislation will deny potential diversification at a speedy rate.
“Putting barriers on interstate student exchanges will dramatically reduce the potential rate at which USU could experience racial diversity within the student body,” Martinez-Inzunza said.
“The lack of ethnic and cultural diversity in classrooms weakens the educational experience and narrows the spectrum of thought and philosophies by which educated analysis can be made,” he said.
Nonetheless, Martinez-Inzunza said the majority of minority students in multi-cultural programs at USU are Utah residents. He said though ethnic diversity won’t change as much, what will be impacted the most is geographic and religious diversity.
“Though it appears that the immediate effect may not be much due to the current situation, the long-term implications could be costly,” Martinez-Inzunza said.