Nonresident students could face an almost 300 percent tuition increase if they take fewer than six credit hours.
This semester, full-time, nonresident students are paying about $6,500 more than resident students, according spring 2011 figures from the Bursar’s Office.
Nonresident students taking six hours or fewer are given a tuition waiver that allows them to pay resident rates. That will all change unless UNM decides to pay those waivers, said Curtis Porter, associate vice president of budget and analysis for Academic Affairs. He said the state previously paid for the waivers, which are offered to about 900 students, and cost the state more than $4 million the last two semesters.
“Although no one has made a decision yet, it is pretty well agreed that UNM cannot afford to keep funding all of these waivers,” he said. “So now a policy has to be drafted that will outline who will be eligible for the waiver in the future.”
Porter stressed that the administration has not yet made a final decision. He said obtaining residency takes about a year in New Mexico.
The waiver cuts could discourage foreign exchange students from attending UNM and will impact the ones already here, said Linda Melville, associate director of the Office of International Programs and Studies.
“Everyone’s trying to figure out what exactly happened,” she said. “They’re also trying to figure out whether the University can cover that out-of-state tuition.”
About 80 international students work in graduate programs, and Melville said she is worried about students who are working on their dissertations. She said those students are normally considered full-time in order to maintain their Visa status but take fewer than six credit hours.
“At this point, those dissertation hours are inexpensive because they’re under the six-credit-hour limit,” she said. “What’s not clear is (whether) those students are going to get some sort of special, reduced tuition.”
Melville said high tuition rates are already a problem for undergraduate international students, especially those without scholarships. Some of them take classes at other UNM campuses, such as Valencia, because tuition rates are lower than those on main campus, she said.
If UNM doesn’t end up paying for the waivers, these students’ tuition could go up as much as $5,000, even if they take classes at branch campuses, Melville said.
UNM will cover the waiver for fall, Porter said, but footing the bill forever isn’t sustainable.
“We probably cannot afford to keep doing this for everyone,” he said. “Basically the University bought time to figure out what to do by just saying that for fall.”
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