Ohio’s only public HBCU is ramping up enrollment efforts by offering in-state tuition to eligible out-of-state candidates this fall.
At Central State University, students from 24 Indiana counties will pay in-state tuition throughout their enrollment at the school near Dayton, Ohio.
Students from Detroit, Indianapolis and Chicago will benefit from a waiver that discounts tuition for two years. Indianapolis students get the waiver because the city’s home county isn’t covered by the reciprocity agreement.
The agreement means eligible students will pay $24,000 for tuition, fees and room and board this year—a savings of $6,000 to $7,000, said Steven Peterson, the university’s assistant director of undergraduate admissions.
Ohio offers various reciprocity agreements to students living in the border states of Indiana, West Virginia, Michigan and Kentucky. About 30 Ohio schools extend some measure of reciprocity to nearby out-of-state students, according to the Ohio Board of Regents.
Peterson said out-of-state students comprise about 60 percent of his school’s the student body.
“A large portion of our students come from out of state, and we know that finances and paying for college is a struggle,” he said. “If we can eliminate that, we can put students on track to focus on their academics and persist to graduation.”
