Shift to out-of-state students at top colleges
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — America's most prominent public universities were founded to serve the people of their states, but they are enrolling record numbers of students from elsewhere to maximize tuition revenue as state support for higher education withers.
The shift has buttressed the finances and reshaped the profile of schools across the country, from the University of California's famed campuses in Berkeley and Los Angeles to the universities of Arkansas, Oregon, Missouri, South Carolina and numerous others. Forty-three of the 50 schools known as "state flagships" enrolled a smaller share of freshmen from within their states in 2014 than they had a decade earlier, federal data show. At 10 flagships, state residents formed less than half the freshman class.
Nowhere is the trend more pronounced than here at the University of Alabama, where students who cheered this month when the Crimson Tide won its fourth national football championship in seven years were mostly from other states.
In 2004, 72 percent of new freshmen here were Alabamians. By 2014, the share was 36 percent. That was the largest swing in the country among 100 flagship and other significant state universities The Washington Post analyzed using federal data on student residency.
The percentage of in-state freshmen fell at more than 70 of those schools during that decade.
There were declines of 20 or more percentage points at UC-Berkeley and UCLA, Idaho State University and the flagships of South Carolina, Missouri, Oregon and Arkansas. There also were drops of more than 15 percentage points at Michigan State, Ohio State, and the universities of Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky and Washington.
The overhaul of the student body at big-name schools reverberates in statehouses and among consumers.
"People inside states believe that they have greater access to their state universities," said Marguerite Roza, a Georgetown University research professor who studies education finance. Many are now asking, she said, "who does that public university belong to anymore? And what is it doing? Is it seeking 'elite' status? That's great, but not if your own kids can't go there."
Kendall Roden, 21, of Garland, Texas, said she was lured to Tuscaloosa even though she had been admitted to the more prestigious University of Texas. Alabama offered her a sizable scholarship, and she said she has thrived as a management information systems major.
Plus she got to see coach Nick Saban's team win national titles in her freshman and senior years. Being a football fan, she said, is "a huge part of my life and Alabama's culture. It's the lifeblood of the university."
On one level, the shift is all about money. Tuition and fees for out-of-state students at four-year public universities average $23,893, according to the College Board. In-state students are charged an average of $9,410. The out-ofstate premium, 150 percent, is lucrative for schools that draw thousands of nonresidents.
"They pay full freight," said UCLA Chancellor Gene Block. "They bring in huge amounts of additional revenue." That funding is key to maintaining academic excellence, he said.
In 2004, 94 percent of UCLA's freshmen were Californians. Ten years later, the share was 73 percent. The number of Californians entering as freshmen at Westwood remained relatively stable — averaging about 4,100 from 2008 to 2014 — but the number of nonresidents surged after the economic recession in 2007 to 2009.
There was an out-of-state spike at Berkeley, too, creating political problems. Three of every 10 freshmen at the California flagship in 2014 came from out of state, up from 1 in 10 a decade earlier. Gov. Jerry Brown (D) — a Berkeley alumnus — wondered last year whether "normal" residents from the nation's most-populous state were getting a fair shot at admission to their top university. University of California President Janet Napolitano, who oversees the system, pledged afterward to limit out-of-state enrollment last year in Berkeley and Los Angeles. All of UC's undergraduate campuses are planning to raise their in-state totals significantly in the next school year.
Block said the non-Californians provide a big non-financial benefit: a cosmopolitan atmosphere on a campus with global reach. Several hundred in each class at UCLA and Berkeley are foreigners.
"There's no substitute for international students," Block said. "They bring perspective you just can't get from the domestic population. It really does add to the environment for everybody."
Numerous studies have shown the historic decline of state support for higher education, although several states raised appropriations modestly in recent years. The Delta Cost Project at American Institutes for Research found this month that state and local funding per student at public research universities was 28 percent lower in 2013 than in 2008, after adjusting for inflation.
The fiscal vise forced universities to trim costs and raise revenue, largely through tuition increases or additional students. Out-of-state expansion proved especially crucial for schools in states with stagnant numbers of high school graduates.