UH Sees Dollars in Foreign and Mainland Students

R.J. Brown/Civil Beat

The University of Hawaii may turn to a surprising source as it deals with a yawning budget shortfall brought on by a poor economy and lower legislative outlays: Mainland and foreign students who can provide a boost to tuition revenue.

UH administrators have been studying an increase in nonresident students as a partial solution to its budgetary problems. They say educating and increasing the number of Hawaii resident graduates remains their primary goal, but they are looking at more nonresident students and the higher tuition they pay.

This fall administrators plan to go before the Board of Regents with a proposal that could result in a thousand more non-Hawaii students attending the Manoa and Hilo campuses. Administrators will ask that nonresident student limits at the two four-year campuses be relaxed and that nonresident graduate students be excluded from the counts.

Currently UH’s nonresident enrollments are limited to 30 percent of the Manoa and Hilo’s student body, though the cap has been exceeded slightly during the past five years. The limits came into play in the 1970’s as part of the system’s controlled growth policy, which was last revised in 2002.

The administrators are considering raising the nonresident enrollment limit to 35 percent at Manoa for undergraduates. There would be no limit for graduate students. At Hilo, a four-year pilot project will be proposed allowing undergraduate levels to rise to 40 percent. A 15 percent cap at community colleges would remain.

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