End Fallacious and Discriminatory “Non-Resident” Classification of College Students

Graduate students: Think you’re a resident? Think again.

Tuition literacy entails regularly monitoring your account for erroneous fees and inaccuracies.

For convenience, federal student loan funding is automatically applied by the University.

If students assume they are of resident status, then resident students would not know to watch for erroneous “Non-Resident” fees being applied to their accounts, or students may make oversight of the entries, or may not have an understanding without previous college experience.

Standard University policy is to automatically classify all Graduate students as “Non-Resident” for ambiguous “tuition purposes.”

Whether you are a resident continuing directly from Undergraduate studies to a Graduate program at the same University, or a resident returning to Graduate studies after a break between degrees, all resident Graduate students are classified as “Non-Resident” status until completing an “Application for Residency”.

This means you will be charged exorbitant “Non-Resident” fees regardless of a pre-existing status as a resident.

Your University will apply such charges unless you complete an “Application for Residency” despite the fact that completing an “Application for Residency” entails confirming “Non-Resident” status before being admitted to your University as a resident.

Students are only informed of the reclassification of their resident status to “Non-Resident” via a paper acceptance letter issued through uncertified USPS mail.

Students are not made aware of the exorbitant debt that results from “Non-Resident” status.

The institution expects that because a letter is sent, the student has been adequately notified regardless of whether the student actually received the letter.

The detrimental economic importance of the “Non-Resident” policy is not made clear and apparent by the University to students.

Residents are likely to assume they are of resident status at the University without having to prove residency.

Otherwise, a non-resident would have no need for an “Application for Residency” unless applying for Residency.

If you are already a resident, the “Non-Resident” policy is fallacious and discriminatory in its application to you.

An internet keyword search for Non-Resident Classification returns Universities’ policies as automatic reclassification for residents as “Non-Resident”, and it is the students’ responsibility to prove otherwise.

Further, undocumented residents are ineligible to apply for Undergraduate or Graduate residency at Universities until attaining citizenship.
Therefore, the discriminatory “Non-Resident” policy serves to economically bar undocumented students of lower socio-economic status (SES) from seeking and attaining an affordable college education.

Such erroneous “Non-Resident” fees applied to residents contribute to the inflated cost of college education in the United States and the misrepresentation of student demographics.

The policy negatively affects students attending college to work in community civil services such as teachers, law enforcement, and politicians.