Expert Admissions in the News

BY BARI MELTZER NORMAN
ask@mycollegecounselor.com

The cost of a college education is higher than ever before, so it's no wonder that more Florida residents are opting to stay in-state for college -- even when prestigious private universities extend offers of admission.

In-state tuition at a Florida public university is approximately one-tenth the tuition at a private college. In-state tuition hovers close to $4,000 a year, while tuition at an elite private college runs around $35,000 per year. And that doesn't include room and board.

With the cost of higher education enticing more students to stay in-state, it has become harder to get into Florida's public colleges. Despite the competitive climate in college admissions, in general, there is good news for Florida residents: Florida public colleges and universities give preference to Florida residents.

In fact, at a minimum, 90 percent of Florida's public university enrollment must be composed of Florida residents. This figure holds for the entire system, according to Gordon Chavis Jr., assistant vice president for undergraduate admissions at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando. Any one school in the system can exceed the 10 percent mark, but the system as a whole must not exceed 10 percent nonresidents.

As at all other Florida public universities, at Florida State University in Tallahassee, ''preference is given to Florida residents in the admissions process. It's our mission, as much as possible, to accommodate Florida students,'' said Hege Ferguson, assistant director of admissions.

At the University of Florida in Gainesville, where Florida residents make up 93.9 percent of the undergraduate enrollment, the freshman class has had out-of-state representation hold steady between 9 and 11 percent for the past several years. And while admission to UF has gotten particularly competitive in recent years, rest assured that it's not because out-of-state residents are taking the place of Floridians.

''The reason freshman admission has gotten so tough [at UF] is the reduction in class size, not because we are admitting more out-of-staters. UF is firmly committed to the needs of the citizens of Florida,'' said UF Director of Admissions Pat Herring. UF overenrolled last year, making for a smaller class size this year -- which might explain why admission was so competitive for this year's high school seniors.

A look at other state systems shows that Floridians have a strong guarantee from the state.

At the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, North Carolinians are guaranteed just 82 percent of the seats in the freshman class.

At the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, there is no strict requirement, ''but by history and tradition, typically about two-thirds of our undergraduate student body are Michigan residents and about one-third are out-of-state students,'' said university spokeswoman Julie Peterson.

The University of Wisconsin system has a reciprocity agreement with Minnesota and reserves at least 75 percent of its class system-wide for Wisconsin and Minnesota residents.

Students in California have a guarantee similar to Florida's students; California residents make up more than 90 percent of the UC student population.

''Out-of-state students need to have higher GPAs'' than California residents to get in to UC schools, said Ricardo Vazquez, a spokesman for the University of California.