State law, colleges differ on tuition status

Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2004 | 11:17 a.m.

Regent Steve Sisolak wants residency requirements for in-state tuition to be reviewed after a student informed him the University and Community College System is breaking state law.

The student, Sara Renteria, was due to begin studies next week at Community College of Southern Nevada. When she went to register, she was told she would have to pay out-of-state tuition, since she had been living in Nevada less than 12 months.

Renteria, who moved to Las Vegas from California in June, looked up the state law and found it says the minimum requirement is six months. Out-of-state tuition at the community college this semester is $2,877 for 12 credits, according to the student handbook, while in-state tuition is $567 -- a difference of $2,310.

At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, out-of-state tuition costs $5,263 for 12 credits, while in-state tuition is $1,020 -- a difference of $4,243 for a full-time undergraduate student.

"I was shocked to hear of this," Sisolak said. The regent said he had never heard of the discrepancy between university system policy and state law in his five years on the board.

"It's really surprising that this has never been brought up," he said. "(But) this is not right, and it sets a bad example. The law is the law."

Renteria said the matter became even more confusing when she began asking other students who had recently moved to the area how much they were paying for tuition.

"They said that people at registration put them down as residents in order to save them money," Renteria said.

"But I didn't want to lie, since it might catch up with me later," she said.

Renteria, who says being brought up in wine country has led her to want to study food and wine, is now being told by her friends she should go into law.

"They're telling me I'm the next Erin Brockovich," she said.

When Sisolak received Renteria's call, he checked out the student's claim with Assistant General Counsel Brooke A. Nielsen. In a letter dated Jan. 9, the counsel said the board adopted its 12-month policy in March 1995.

"The change in the residency policy was recommended by (then-) Chancellor (Richard) Jarvis to bring Nevada's residency requirement in line with other states," the letter said.

It goes on to explain that Don Klasic, general counsel at the time, felt the six-month requirement was "unconstitutional," since the board was considered an independent body based on the state constitution.

Regent Howard Rosenberg, a professor at the University of Nevada, Reno who also advises students, said he has fought for residency for some students and would favor reducing the requirement.

"I don't get this idea of declaring yourself a separate constitutional entity and doing what you please," Rosenberg said. "It's not right."

Rosenberg said he didn't think the former regents who passed the policy meant to hurt anybody, but the policy should change.

"I don't think anybody went out of their way to do anything wrong. I think it was done for all of the right reasons," Rosenberg said. "It does produce an effect that I don't think was right. It has blocked some people from coming to school and made other people pay more."

Sisolak said Tuesday that the current setup is wrong.

"If there's a law we don't like, then the Legislature has to change it," he said.

The regent put the issue on the upcoming board meeting Jan. 29, where Tom Ray, general counsel for CCSN, said he will lay out two options for the board.

"First they have to decide, how important is the 12-month requirement? If it isn't important, they can amend the policy to six months," Ray said.

"If it is, I will recommend filing an action in court seeking a determination from a judge on whether it's constitutional or not for the board to set the policy," he said.

Sisolak said an untold number of students may be affected by the longer residency requirement.

In a Jan. 12 letter to Nielsen, Sisolak wrote, "I would also like to know what recourse these individual students might have, to recoup the fees that they were charged in conflict with Nevada Revised Statutes."

Renteria said she wanted the university and college system "to resolve this internally ... but if it comes down to that I would take it to court."

"Resolving this could help a lot of people," she said.

Sun reporter

Jean Reid Norman contributed to this story.