K-State to offer reduced tuition for students from Illinois
Sep. 21—Kansas State University will now offer a reduced tuition rate for students coming from Illinois.
Students coming from Illinois to attend classes at K-State will be charged a reduced tuition rate effective for the fall 2022 semester. This applies to full-time, domestic, undergraduate students who are either incoming freshmen or transfer students.
The Kansas Board of Regents approved the measure last week.
The reduced rate is available to students pursuing any undergraduate major with an overall high school GPA of 3.25 and a composite score of 22 on the ACT, or 1100 on the SAT. The reduced out-of-state tuition rate will be 150% of the in-state rate.
K-State spokeswoman Michelle Geering said for an example, if the in-state tuition rate for an individual student was $10,000, then the new reduced out-of-state rate for a student from Illinois would be $15,000. Right now, the tuition rate for in-state students at KSU is $316.30 per credit hour. The out-of-state rate per credit hour is $852.
According to the Regents meeting agenda, Illinois ceased to have any higher learning institutions participating in the Midwest Student Exchange Program, or MSEP. This meant students from that state would no longer be able to receive discounted tuition rates from other states that participate in the MSEP.
K-State also offers discounted tuition to students from Arkansas, California, Colorado, Michigan, Oklahoma and Texas.
The Regents agenda document said "Offering a reduced tuition rate is an attractive incentive for out-of-state students and maintaining consistency in the market is important to the relationships we are building."
In the fall 2020 semester, K-State had 239 students from Illinois enrolled at the university. For fall 2019, there were 228 Illinois students, while fall 2018 saw 231 enrolled students from Illinois.
In other business, the Board of Regents approved expanding K-State's dependent and spouse tuition scholarship program to include employees in term positions who have at least five years of service at the university. Term positions are typically shorter because of grant funding or other job characteristics, but KSU officials said some employees on term appointments have been in their positions for several years, but they were not eligible for the tuition scholarship program under previous guidelines.
University officials anticipate this updated policy to affect about 35 employees and cost $145,000 to implement. The expanded policy will take effect for the spring 2022 semester.
The Regents also approved amending the paid parental leave policy to include provisions from Gov. Laura Kelly's executive order in July. The amendments include increasing parental leave from six weeks to eight for primary caregivers, and from three weeks to four for secondary caregivers. It also extends the option for paid parental leave to foster parents.
