After the University System Board of Regents modified the policy to apply for in-state tuition status last spring, one thing is clear – little has changed. Students are still struggling to complete the rigorous consideration process for the change in status.
The previous policy required students to meet nine requirements for a year, including having a Maryland driver’s license and copies of rent checks. The ninth requirement, which forces students to prove they live in the state of Maryland for more than education, typically gives students the most problems – and from Wednesday’s scene at the office of residency classification, it seems little has changed.
The revisions were supposed to make the process for proving the ninth and most troublesome requirement simpler, but they have not lessened the amount of paperwork, let alone make the process significantly easier. Students who experienced the process before the changes are still frustrated and don’t feel anything has changed.
Administrators are not surprised. They say the changes would not have caused thousands more students to be accepted. Changing a student’s residency status can cost the university and the state $13,000 per student per year, so it’s understandable there wouldn’t be a monumental change in numbers of accepted students.
While it should not be a breeze to be considered in-state, students should not be rejected because they lost one rent check over a 12-month period. Minutiae should not be an excuse to reject students who deserve the in-state status and therefore less expensive tuition.
In the spring, a Maryland court ruled that the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, unfairly denied in-state status to four UMBC graduate students, a process deemed unconstitutional. Even university President Dan Mote said the application process is unnecessarily unfair.
But now the spirit of the lawsuit’s victory seems lost. The changes seem to have done little to alleviate the feeling that the red-tape and nit-picking is unjust – which is exactly what they were intended to do.
Once the regents understand more clearly the effects of the revisions, they should examine how much this helps the student body. Right now, it’s not looking like much.
