KEARNEY, Neb. (AP) - The University of Nebraska at Kearney is looking to draw more out-of-state students by offering them in-state tuition.
UNK recently announced that beginning with the 2021-22 school year, it will offer resident tuition to all out-of-state students, the Omaha World-Herald reported.
The new policy expands a UNK program that had offered the same in-state tuition deal to students from Colorado and Kansas. The school is calling the program the New Nebraskan Scholarship. It would drop a nonresident's tuition per credit hour from $455 to $209. The initiative doesn't apply to students taking courses online or to graduate courses.
"Many students and their families from outside Nebraska will now find that their education is more affordable than the options they may be looking at in their home state," UNK Chancellor Doug Kristensen said in a written statement.
UNK had attracted about 1,000 non-Nebraskan undergraduates several years ago, but that number dropped to fewer than 600 last fall, said Kelly Bartling, UNK's vice chancellor of enrollment management. Part of that drop can be attributed to UNK dropping some men's intercollegiate sports, including baseball, tennis and golf, she said.
If UNK can attract 200 more out-of-stater student with the new program, that will cover the revenue lost because of the discount, she said.