Residency requirement returns to one year

Monday, June 27, 2005 | 8:49 a.m.

RENO -- Beginning Friday, out-of-state students, once again, will have to live in Nevada for one full year before they can qualify for the tuition rates in-state residents receive.

The Board of Regents on Friday unanimously changed its residency policy back to 12 months to bring the higher education system's policy in line with a new state law going into effect July 1.

The vote, which regents made with no comment, effectively put an end to an 18-month controversy that erupted in January 2004 after Community College of Southern Nevada student Sara Renteria discovered that the board's 12-month policy conflicted with state law, which only required that students live in Nevada for six months prior to the first day of classes in order to qualify for resident tuition rates.

Regents were forced to change their policy immediately and later voted to issue full refunds to every student adversely affected by the policy -- which had been out of compliance since 1995. So far, the Nevada System of Higher Education's seven teaching institutions have issued more about $750,000 in refunds through April 15, 2005, according to data provided by Ginny Wiswell, assistant to the vice chancellor for finance.

UNLV has paid more than $500,000 of that. CCSN has paid out about $92,000 in refunds and Nevada State College in Henderson has only given about $7,300 back.

Only about 40 percent of the nearly 1,000 students who have applied for refunds have actually qualified under the strict burden of proof required. System officials convinced lawmakers to change the state statute to 12 months during this 2005 session as one of the Board of Regents' bill requests. The fear, several regents and higher education officials said, was that there would be an influx of students coming into Nevada from California and other neighboring states to take advantage of the cheaper tuition.

Residents only pay a per credit registration fee, but non-residents pay the fees and the full cost of their tuition. Currently, a full-time non-resident student at the universities is charged $9,467 per year. The non-resident tuition at the Nevada State College is $7,191 and at the community colleges it is $4,915.

Students who would have qualified as a resident under the six-month policy for this fall semester will be grandfathered in, Dan Klaich, vice chancellor for legal affairs, said.

Regent Steve Sisolak, who brought Renteria before the Board of Regents and pressured his colleagues to give the refunds, said he did not object to the state policy.

"It's their (lawmakers) decision," Sisolak said. "If they say it's 12 months, it's 12 months."

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