Academic Common Market

The university recently announced it will no longer offer in-state tuition to students who cannot pursue their major in their home state, a program that cost the university more than $1 million a year, officials said.

Through the university’s membership in the Academic Common Market, students can pay in-state tuition at a public university in any of the other 15 states in the program if their state does not offer a desired major. However, after conducting a study to determine costs and benefits of staying in the marketplace, university officials determined the program cost the university more money than it brought in.

The university submitted its withdrawal to the Maryland Higher Education Commission a few weeks ago, according to former interim Provost Ann Wylie. Students currently attending the university through the marketplace will not be affected and can continue to pay the same tuition for the duration of their time here.“We will honor every one of those students,” Wylie said. “This will only be for new people who would have wanted to come.”

The Academic Common Market is a consortium of 16 states through the Southern Regional Educational Board, which Maryland joined in 1948, according to Maryland Higher Education Commission Chief of Staff Greg FitzGerald. The state joined the Academic Common Market in 1973.

One flaw officials saw in the program is that students who come here through the marketplace later change their major to something available in their home state, countering the objective of the program, said university President Wallace Loh.

“Many of them switch majors after they’ve been admitted,” he said. “They’re sort of scamming the system.”

However, students using the system as intended said they have benefited greatly from the opportunity to study on this campus. For example, if a public university in Georgia offered a Jewish studies major, Noah Stein would not have had to look to this state to study.

“It’s a really big deal — paying in-state tuition is huge,” said the junior Jewish studies and psychology major. “I don’t know if I necessarily would have gone here if not for that excellent deal … I think it’s a big loss.”

It can still be difficult to track students who come through the program, Wylie added, as well as to follow their academic path and major. In addition, while only about 100 to 150 students are attending the university through the program, those spots could go to students who live in the state, she said.

Virginia Tech recently announced it too will soon leave the market, Wylie added.

“We have seen, over time, all of the flagship universities withdraw,” she said. “We have no peers who are in it.”

Although the university is withdrawing, FitzGerald said, other state institutions are not.

“This is a valuable program for a lot of students, and a lot of universities like to take full advantage of it,” he said.