There’s no doubt that the cost of attending a four-year college has gone up and, in some cases, has surpassed what many families can afford. These costs are often exacerbated when you compare a student’s in-state options with neighboring states’ schools, leaving students with no other choice but to stay local rather than going away to college. While attending an in-state school and living close to home has its advantages, including the ability to commute if housing costs are too much of a burden, going away to college comes with a number of benefits as well. 

For students who want to go away to college but cannot afford to do so there are a few strategies to use to lower the sticker price of the out-of-state school. Of course, there are traditional ways of thinking about this, including scholarships, student aid, and merit awards–all of which students should calculate when comparing offers. Scholarship, aid, and awards can make out-of-state tuition more affordable, but what about getting in-state or similar pricing without any of the three. The following two strategies can help students on their path to an out-of-state school with a comparable in-state cost. 

Tuition Reciprocity Agreements 

Tuition reciprocity is when one state or school has an agreement with other states or schools to reduce or eliminate non-resident admissions fees and tuition. These agreements can exist between two states, such as the Memorandum of Understanding Between Indiana and Kentucky, or within an established exchange program, such as the Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE). Often these agreements grant students a cost for college equivalent to their in-state program or put a cap, such as “no more than 150%” of in-state tuition. The key is to understand how the agreements work, and what students need to do to apply for them.

Take, for example, the Midwest Student Exchange Program (MSEP)--another conglomerate of states with agreements that reduce the cost of attendance below that of the non-resident rate–whereby students must indicate that they’re seeking admissions as a MSEP student during the application phase. This means that a Minnesota resident can attend public colleges and universities in other states, including Wisconsin, North Dakota and even the Canadian province of Manitoba (among others), with a discounted structure for fees and tuition. Students can typically find information about these agreements at their state’s office of higher education, such as the explanation of the benefits on the website for the Minnesota Office of Higher Education. 

Unavailable In-State Majors 

Another way that students can go to school out-of-state with in-state tuition is through programs like the Academic Common Market (ACM). In this case, there are 15 participating states and more than 100 colleges and universities that offer a reciprocating agreement that if your in-state school doesn’t offer a major that you wish to pursue, you can pick from the out-of-state schools that offer that program and attend for your in-state rate. For example, a student in Delaware can attend University of Tennessee for University of Delaware rates rather than the non-resident rate at University of Tennessee. In many instances, we’re not talking about a few thousand dollars; in many cases, it’s more like 10s of thousands of dollars. 

A few stipulations are important to note. We already mentioned that the in-state school cannot offer the major that the student wants in the out-of-state program. For the example above, that means that the University of Delaware doesn’t offer the undergraduate major that the student wants to take at the University of Tennessee. The other aspect of the process is that the student must be accepted to the out-of-state school of their choice and then apply to their home state’s ACM coordinator for acceptance into the tuition agreement program. As such, the student would have been accepted to the University of Tennessee, apply to the ACM coordinator in Delaware, and, if accepted, the tuition would revert to Delaware in-state rates. It sounds a bit tricky, but the process is fairly straightforward if you follow the steps outlined on their site. 

Conclusion

The key to taking advantage of these offers is knowing about them. At a minimum, counselors, college and career readiness specialists, and other school officials should know about their state’s agreements. There are many many ways to beat the burden of the rising costs of college, but students need committed and knowledgeable advisors to help them. A Texas student who wants to go to school in Maryland, must learn about what ACM has to offer. A student in Idaho who wants to attend college in Nevada needs to find out more about how the Western Undergraduate Exchange might work for them. High schools can schedule events and other information sessions to help families with these decisions, and the result is that more students will go to college and many will do so out-of-state for cheaper than they bargained.