Counties added to tuition incentive program
October 29, 2002
Although Western students will be see a 10.7 percent increase in tuition next year, university administrators will allow more out-of-state students to attend Western without exhausting their wallets.
The Board of Regents voted unanimously Friday to qualify students living in six more counties in Ohio, Illinois and Missouri for reduced out-of state tuition through the university’s Tuition Incentive Program.
Students residing in TIP counties will pay $2,024 a semester in the 2003-2004 school year. Out-of-state students not in TIP counties will pay $3,900.
The new TIP counties include St. Louis and St. Charles counties in Missouri; Madison and St. Clair counties in Illinois; Montgomery County in Ohio and Pickett County in Tennessee.
The board asked Luther Hughes, vice president for Enrollment Management, at its last quarterly meeting to consider adding the counties because of their proximity to other TIP counties and their ties to the Bowling Green area.
“We believed with that population base there were some good opportunities for us,” Hughes said.
Montgomery County, with Dayton as its county seat, is north of the Cincinnati area. Four counties in the Cincinnati area make up a handful of the 21 counties the regents approved at its last meeting to include in the TIP program.
Staff Regent Howard Bailey, who asked Hughes in August to consider including counties in St. Louis and East St. Louis in the incentive program, said Friday that several employees of the Corvette plant in Bowling Green still have family and friends in St. Louis, the plant’s former location.
He said students from the area have expressed interest in coming to Western but couldn’t afford the out-of-state tuition rate.
“I thought it would be natural that family and offspring from that work force to come to Western,” Bailey said. “They would contribute and bring a metropolitan diversity that our institution can benefit from.”
Provost Barbara Burch said Friday that recruitment in the TIP counties this year will be limited to sending information pamphlets and contacting high school counselors in the areas by phone and e-mail.
“We don’t have the staff to do the same kind of recruiting as surrounding counties,” she said. “We’re going to see how it goes this year, then we’ll make our plans after that.”
Reach Mai Hoang at news@wkuherald.com.
