Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Businessman offers to help students in tuition dispute

Las Vegas businessman Stephen Cloobeck is offering to fund any lawsuits against the university system by students who want to recover the difference between out-of-state tuition and in-state tuition if they were wrongly charged the higher rate.

The conflict arose after a student informed Regent Steve Sisolak the University and Community College System was breaking state law by charging residents the out-of-state tuition rate if they had been living in Nevada less than 12 months.

Student Sara Renteria found the Nevada state statute declares a student "in-state" after residing in the state for six months.

The statute says that in-state residents include, "All students whose families reside outside the state of Nevada, providing such students themselves have been bona fide residents of the state of Nevada for at least six months prior to their matriculation at the university."

Renteria, who moved to Las Vegas from California in June, had been a resident for more than six months when she enrolled. Even so, she is still being charged the full out-of-state tuition fee.

Now the system has a lot of explaining to do, and might possibly owe students a lot of money, Sisolak said.

Out-of-state tuition at the Community College of Southern Nevada this semester is $2,877 for 12 credits, according to the student handbook, while in-state tuition is $567.

At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, out-of-state tuition costs $5,263 for 12 credits, while in-state tuition is $1,020.

"That's a lot of money to pay back," Sisolak said. "And we might have to do it."

The system may very well have to pay back those students wishing to be reimbursed, Cloobeck said.

Cloobeck -- chief executive officer for Polo Towers -- was planning to meet with Renteria today to discuss the facts and then take the next step, he said.

"If it's all true, then it's just a tremendous cause of action," he said. "What we're looking at is a potential class action. If there is a group of people who have been damaged the same way, then they'll have a class action on their hands."

And Cloobeck intends to lead it, he said.

"I've already assembled a legal team," he said. "I've already gotten commitments from lawyers to handle this. The system is 1,000 percent wrong here and we're going to do something about it.

"How many kids have not been afforded an education because of this issue? How many families have been struggling because they are being overcharged?"

Quite a few students may have been overcharged. According to the Fall 2003 Record, 4,324 "non-Nevada" students and 831 international students attended UNLV.

With so many students paying out-of-state tuition, it's a wonder that the system got away with the error for so long, Cloobeck 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.

"That's nine years," Cloobeck said. "How this could go on and affect students for nine years is beyond me."

Cloobeck said the system's "poor leadership" is primarily to blame.

"All I can say is I've spoken to a regent who told me the entire system was broken," he said. "They're getting bad advice obviously and not handling their duties as regents. There are some leadership issues somewhere and people are being paid by the state that are not doing their job properly and not following the laws of the state."

Sisolak said that he did not understand how the policy was adopted nine years ago.

"I have no idea how it got adopted when it was not meeting with state law," he said. "That's the $64,000 question right now. I have no clue but I intend to fix things."

To deal with the issue as soon as possible, Sisolak pushed to add residency requirements for in-state tuition to the regents' agenda for a meeting two weeks from today.

Sisolak also praised Renteria.

"Sara is a hero in my opinion," he said. "She has a lot of courage to come forward like this."

"If these students sue, then we're going to owe an awful lot of money," Sisolak said. "We're talking tens of millions of dollars if we're looking at the past nine years with so many campuses and so many students. I don't know how far back it can go and I don't know if there are any statutes of limitations, but we could wind up owing a lot."

Sisolak said he was surprised that no one had looked up the statute in the past.

"The only reason I would think no one brought it up before is because students generally take the word of the school catalog," he said.

Renteria said her friends have urged her to consider applying her investigative skills to the pursuit of a law degree.

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

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