OT - Student claims University of Michigan discriminates against veterans

And the really sad thing is that if you look at where the spending is going, it's almost exclusively going to administration, rather than new faculty positions. The absolute number of administrators at the average university has increased something like three-fold over the last 20 years, while tenure-track faculty has pretty much remained static.

I have this conversation about this with many others, and there is a lot of interesting factoids (unverified):

1. College enrollment has only gone up about 7% (as % of the population) over the past ~50 years.

2. Its much easier to get access to private (i.e. scholarships) or public funds (i.e. student loans) these days.  It took me about 30 minutes to get my grad school loan to Michigan.

2. College tuition as % of per capita GDP has stayed pretty steady.  HOWEVA, not for big brand schools. 

The laws of demand are in full affect for big brand schools, but the supply for available schools are increasing.  Therefore, college is fully available at a reasonable cost, you just have to go to somewhere other than the Michigans of the world. 

...and yet a handful of student athletes insist that they are toiling for free.  If only those kids had a clue the kind of misery they are avoiding by graduating debt-free (thanks to their scholarships).

I only have 2 or 3 even "moderately amusing story, bro" stories.

I find it amusing that , even though you know none of the details to which I refer, you're willing to blindly defend these people.  

I know someone who lived in Michigan his entire life except for his first two years of high school.  (Not his last two - his first two.  He was back in the state for his junior and senior year.)  U-M made him pay out-of-state tuition.  You want to tell me that's fair?

If the University's financial folks can find any pretext to call someone out-of-state, they will do it.  I guess it makes sense from their perspective - some of them might be facing layoffs if they couldn't come up with new revenue streams.  But it's shitty as hell for the students involved.

but I have known many people to travel abroad in lieu of studies (for Umich) and come back and be told they are not in-state, because they have been gone for a year.  

HOWEVER, I have known some to have divorced parents (one in Mich and the other in Illinois) and live in Michigan their whole life and still be considered out of state.

I know this makes for a long post, but it is incredibly relevent:  I know a girl who I grew up with (known since 2nd grade I believe) who has not moved, been labeled as out of state just because of . . . ???

Love my future alma mater, but jeez, some of these cases are very upsetting.  

If you are active duty military, you can continue to be a "resident" of your home state. After spending 6 and a half years away from Michigan while in the Marines, I was still a Michigan resident, my car had Michigan liscense plate, etc... The University is in the wrong on this issue if it turns out they are trying to push the issue of residency.

(1) Article says he was overseas. (2) Letter he got from Michigan apparently denied him in-state tuition because of his "overseas service", not because he was a resident of some other state.

Obviously, getting the facts from only one side of the story, but there's no evidence he was stationed in another state and became a resident of that state. That may be what many in the military do, but it doesn't seem like that's what he did.

Discrimination may be the wrong label, but it is not right.  The regulations/policies may work for some, but doesn't mean they're fair for this type of student. 

I was in this guy's scenario a few years ago, and the presumption was definitely that I was not a resident. It was a paperwork battle and unpleasant experience. I had lived in only two places in my life: Michigan and overseas, on orders, but I never was able to convince UM that I was a Michigan resident. (Eventually moot, since I went somewhere else.) I'm not saying UM shouldn't confirm someone's residency status with independent documentation; it's just that the presumption was - once I lived outside Michigan - I was proving my residency from ground zero.

Establishing residence for military members means becoming a resident for tax purposes. Lots of servicemen end up in Texas or Florida and choose to become residents so they don't need to pay state income tax there or at subsequent duty stations.

I kept Michigan residency for my entire term of service, so I stayed an in-state resident.

"and continuously claim Michigan as the state of legal residence for tax income purposes."

As a military person myself, whose whole family has served (save for the little bro, but he's still 17), I know a lot of people switch residencies for those tax breaks. Like I said above, most people do it in states like IL (no income tax on military personnel).  I think he did the same when he went to basic, or A-school, or whatever. If he didn't then this would be a non-issue.