Governor wants second look at residency bill
All students will be paying higher tuition next year but now non-resident students expecting to gain residency this year may not meet the new requirements.
Gov. Michael Leavitt signed House Bill 331 Non-resident Tuition for Higher Education Tuesday. In addition to current residency requirements, the bill requires out-of-state students to complete 60 credits at a Utah school before they can achieve residency status.
Leavitt said in a letter he will call upon two concerns he has with the bill at a special session with the legislature in May.
“The law has no transition provision to soften the impact on those who have detrimentally relied on an expectation of achieving residency status next fall,” he said. “We value the contributions they make to our institutions and our state.”
Leavitt said some “soft transition” mechanism should be considered before students are required to enroll and pay tuition.
“Second, I believe the revenue generating potential of this bill was significantly overvalued in the available information during the session,” he said.
Both President Kermit L. Hall and Associated Students of Utah State University President Steve Palmer encourage students to voice their concern with the bill.
“Hang in there with us. We’re not going to lose you,” President Hall said.
President Hall said he recognizes concerns such as students in the first-year Success program or students who are considering leaving USU.
“We’re pushing the envelope as hard as we can to try and help these students,” President Hall said. “We will work something out in the May special session.”
The first-year Success program is designed to enhance a student’s first-year college experience. After going through the program and living on campus for one year, students apply for residency. President Hall said he is working on creating a two-year Success program that would have the same type of agreement the first-year success program has.
Palmer said he does not see any advantages to the bill unless the issue was to slow down enrollment.
“I think that the bill itself was poorly written, he said. “If I had to choose, I wouldn’t speak in favor of it.”
Palmer said his number one focus is to voice concern with the bill.
“I intend to call every single legislator myself between now and then,” he said. “If we could have the bill removed from the books we would.”
Boyd Gariott, legislative fiscal analyst, makes recommendations to legislators. The office of the Legislative Fiscal Analyst handed out a document dealing with funding at a higher education appropriation subcommittee meeting in the early session.
Due to the recession, $250 million was cut from Utah’s budget. USU’s budget was cut by $6.6 million. There has also been more than 8,000 new students this year at institutions of higher education in Utah.
“There was huge fiscal pressure on higher education this year,” Gariott said. “Sometimes it takes some drastic measures and hard decisions had to be made.”
Paul Brinkman, University of Utah associate vice president for budget and planning, said the University of Utah is also just waiting to see what happens.
University of Utah students have also been active in lobbying efforts, he said. He said most institutions in other states require stricter residency requirements and although “it is a hard argument to make, it’s appropriate for our state to be similar to other states on this issue.”
HB331 is expected to raise $5 million toward the hole in the budget. Both USU and the University of Utah contribute $1.7 million to that hole, he said.
Some students are evaluating their options to attend another university or return home. President Hall said he does not want to lose any students.
David Seegmiller, a sophomore majoring in computer science, said, “Right now I just don’t have a lot of faith in what they are going to do and how they’re going to do it.”
When Seegmiller heard the bill was signed, he said, “It kind of threw my world upside down.”
However, he said it has been a wake-up call and provided an opportunity to get involved with other students sharing the same concerns.