Puerto Rican pupils apply to area colleges
Students from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands continue to flock to Central Florida colleges and universities, which have offered in-state tuition to people from areas affected by Hurricane Maria.
At University of Central Florida, 448 students from the islands have applied to attend during the fall or summer semesters.
Of those applicants, 35 have been admitted, and the university is still considering 264. The number of students who will actually enroll is not yet available.
Also, Valencia College enrolled 35 new Puerto Rican students for the summer term. Additionally, 110 students who took classes there in the spring decided to continue. And 60 have already enrolled for the fall semester, the college said.
Promises of reduced in-state tuition have made Florida colleges and universities attractive for students from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, who would normally pay higher outof-state rates.
After hurricanes Maria and Irma swept through Puerto Rico in September, UCF promised instate tuition for the spring 2018 semester only. But in January, the university’s Board of Trustees voted to extend the offer through the spring 2019 semester, saying the move would help students greatly and the cost to the university was negligible because the students are filling seats that otherwise would have been empty.
At that time, officials said the university had received 1,135 applications from displaced students after the hurricanes and admitted 358 of them. More than 200 had enrolled at that time.
The change saves students thousands of dollars each semester.
Tuition for a full-time, in-state UCF student is about $3,200 per semester. For an out-of-state student, it’s about $11,200.
Valencia also offered in-state tuition for Puerto Rican students this spring and summer. For a full-time student, that’s a discount of about $4,318 per semester.
Students who were previously considered non-residents for tuition purposes can qualify for instate tuition if they can demonstrate they’ve lived in the state for a year for reasons other than pursuing a post-secondary education.
It’s unclear how many newcomers from Puerto Rico might qualify for in-state tuition this way after the colleges and universities stop waiving the higher, out-of-state, tuition rate for them.