University of Virginia Library

You And Your Tuition

One thing can surely be said for the
information regarding voting rights, tuition,
and residence requirements that has recently
been disseminated. It is damn confusing.

In order to make relatively clear what seem
to be at times conflicting stories regarding the
status of 18 year old adults under the 26th
amendment, we offer the following
(hopefully sensible) explanations.

The National Association of State
Universities and Land Grant Colleges
(NASULGC) issued a press release regarding
the possible financial implications for state
universities of a decrease in nonresident
tuition payments due to 18 year-olds
declaring residency in the state wherein they
attend college. It was suggested (see story on
p. 1 of yesterday's Cavalier Daily) that state
colleges will lose "millions of dollars" as a
result of the 26th amendment if the
amendment (which gives adult status and
voting rights to four million college age
people), exempts them from out-of-state
tuition.

There is certainly some evidence that such
a financial repercussion for state universities is
possible. If, for instance, students are
classified as residents for tuition purposes by
the same criteria which govern their voter
eligibility, there will no doubt be a sizable
switch from nonresident to resident status
and a corresponding decrease in university
revenues. This appears to be the case in many
states under present statutes.

In Virginia, however, certain precautions
have been taken which should mitigate the
problem considerably. There is, in addition to
a 12 month residency requirement, a statute
which requires domicile in Virginia with the
intent to remain, before a student can be
regarded as a citizen of Virginia for resident
tuition purposes.

It is not enough, then, to have lived most
of each college year in Virginia, transfer your
auto tags from your previous home state to
Virginia, and pay taxes in Virginia, to be
classified as a Virginian and be eligible for
in-state tuition. The domiciliary
requirement–the sine qua non for
eligibility–must be met by demonstrating an
intent to remain in Virginia following
graduation.

There is an advisory committee to
President Shannon at the University entitled
the Committee on Virginia Status of
University Students which deals with disputes
regarding residency and domiciliary status.
The Committee, and its executive assistant
William Beerworth, a graduate student in
Law, are responsible for determining the
merits of individual cases where students are
petitioning to have their status as out-of-state
students changed. If the student is not
satisfied with the decision rendered by Mr.
Beerworth, he may appeal to the entire
committee, and if still dissatisfied, he may
appeal to President Shannon.

The domiciliary requirement has been
upheld by the courts as constitutional,
according to Mr. Beerworth. Previous to the
26th amendment there was little question of
domicile because a student was not entitled to
determine his domicile until age 21. Now that
the age of majority has been reduced to 18,
the size of the pool of students who could
potentially elect to change domicile to
Virginia has obviously increased considerably.
However, the rub to those seeking to reduce
their tuition by changing domicile lies in the
"intent to remain" clause. Being unsure of
where one intends to go after graduation is
not sufficient evidence that one intends to
remain a citizen of Virginia, according to Mr.
Beerworth.

Having summarized the situation, a look at
merit is in order. While those of us who come
from out-of-state have an understandable gut
reaction toward the windfall gains that could
be made by us if we could become in-state
students, the case is worth a deeper look. If
the University were to lose a substantial
portion of its $2.68 million in out-of-state
tuition revenues, there would be an
immediate need for alternate sources of
funds. The obvious option would be an
increase in all tuitions to offset the loss. If
that option were not exercised, as the author
of the NASULGC report hopes it is not, there
would need to be other reasonable
alternatives to non-resident tuition and the
possibilities are not plentiful.

Certainly the "intent to remain" clause is
difficult to absolutely define, much less to
unreservedly justify. But, clearly, Virginia has
in its domiciliary statute a possible remedy
for a potentially debilitating problem
universities across the nation may face.

Looking beyond our own personal
pecuniary stake in the issue, the ambiguities of
the domiciliary statute seem unquestionably
preferable to the outrageous misfortunes (not
only to residents, but to the "low tuition
principle" that has been a cornerstone to
public education in America) of losing
nonresident tuition.