OT - Student claims University of Michigan discriminates against veterans
Brian Stone, 26, returned home to Dearborn after spending four years overseas with the U.S. Navy.
He was excited to resume his studies at the University of Michigan until, he says, the university billed him as an out-of-state student, increasing his tuition by $10,000 each year.
"And then I got a letter in the mail saying that due to my overseas service that I may be considered an out-of-state resident. I had a $6,000 bill that was left for me," Stone said.
The sophomore went before university leaders late Thursday afternoon on behalf of the Student Veterans Association. Stone believes the University of Michigan unfairly uses its residency policy against veterans with overseas tuition in order to charge them out-of-state tuition...
February 21st, 2013 at 9:12 PM ^
I spent my whole life in Michigan, then went to school in California for a bit while keeping Michigan as my permanent residence. Took months to sort out even though I was living in Michigan at the time of my application.
February 22nd, 2013 at 9:09 AM ^
The difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition is pretty significant (especially at the graduate level).
The fact that you had to be spend a handful of hours (5?, 10? whatever) to prep your case and present it to a school administrator to save yourself potentially $30K to a $100K hardly seems ridiculous.
February 21st, 2013 at 8:33 PM ^
As a vet, I understand this. The military tells you to either choose a state tax-free residence or as in the case of overseas, he changed his residence to not have to pay state taxes. A benefit for most. For instance, coming from Alabama, I had the right to choose Florida or Texas for my state of residence which has no state taxes. The down side, if I wanted to go to a school outside the state of Florida/Texas, I am now an out of state student. Luckily, I was warned about this before I changed my residence. (Un)fortunately, I chose Michigan so I was still an out-of-state student. Go blue. And suck up the huge student loans like the rest of us.
Plus, I'm pretty sure my military record help me get into UM in the first place. I mean, I came from Alabama after all.
February 21st, 2013 at 9:05 PM ^
303, military unit?
February 21st, 2013 at 9:17 PM ^
sign language
(I believe)
February 21st, 2013 at 9:56 PM ^
than 303.
February 21st, 2013 at 8:38 PM ^
I'm confused as to how he was charged out of state tuition for 4 months. This is a one-time payment, not something you pay monthly. And if they decide to change his classification he will likely get reimbursed. The University won't undercharge people and then ask for more. They will overcharge and then reimburse you...as does any other business.
EDIT: Meant to reply to a post above originally
February 21st, 2013 at 8:43 PM ^
February 21st, 2013 at 8:49 PM ^
Right, but if tuition changes then he would have that reimbursed. You're paying for the whole semester, not on a per-month basis. They payment for the WHOLE semester is split up.
February 21st, 2013 at 8:41 PM ^
As far as I'm concerned veteran's in good standing shouldn't have to pay more than in-state tuition at any school, no matter where they call home.
February 21st, 2013 at 8:44 PM ^
At least grad school was in-state.
February 21st, 2013 at 9:05 PM ^
They volunteered, got paid, and get education benefits besides. It's not even all that hard to get the military to pay for multiple degrees while you're enlisted, or at least it doesn't seem to be given the number of people i know who received advanced degrees on the taxpayer dime.
February 21st, 2013 at 10:39 PM ^
February 22nd, 2013 at 10:59 AM ^
You can volunteer for a lot of things and get paid, but how many of them involve you possibly getting killed in the line of duty? Please, stop applying reasoning that insults the commitment, sacrifice and dedication that our vets accept as part of our military.
Edit: Neg me all you want, don't really care. But when people who have never served start making assumptions and voicing opinions that aren't fully supportive of our military it pisses me off. This whole thread is slowly becoming more and more infuriating.
February 21st, 2013 at 10:32 PM ^
http://cdn.govexec.com/media/gbc/docs/pdfs_edit/020813ksp1.pdf
February 22nd, 2013 at 9:28 AM ^
It would be nice to cut the vets a break but frankly tuition at public universities should be lower in general for everyone, low enough that it should almost be a moot point as to whether you are a veteran or not.
That most other developed countries offer free (or nearly free) higher education really makes the US appear to have a lousy commitment to education. Couple that with the debt that many students are compelled to burden themselves with and it's difficult to be optimistic for the future of American prosperity.
February 21st, 2013 at 8:45 PM ^
The university did the same thing to me 20 years ago. I served six years in the Army and enrolled at UM after returning from Germany. When I got my first tuition bill I was shocked to learn that UM had accepted me as an out-of-state student. Luckily, I was able to get a state representative to contact the university president. My situation was fixed quickly and the president sent me a letter of apology.
I knew a handful of other veterans on the Ann Arbor campus at the time who did not have this problem. But if accepting veterans who served overseas as out-of-state students is UM policy now, it needs to change. Interestingly, the report from WDIV did not have a response from the university.
February 21st, 2013 at 8:46 PM ^
February 21st, 2013 at 8:50 PM ^
February 21st, 2013 at 8:51 PM ^
I'm a student veteran and I know exactly what he's talking about, but there is a residency classification form that would have taken care of this problem. I had to do it myself, and was eventually classified as an in-state student. The only thing is, the process takes several months, and meanwhile you're still being charged out of state tuition.
It's frustrating, and to be honest I was surprised they didn't have a work around for military vets, but there are avenues set up to resolve the situation. The bigger issue I had was that the GI Bill is counted as a "gift" making the student vet ineligible for most school and state aid. You know, the kind of gift you work 4 to 6 years for, making $23k, in miserable conditions to get.
February 21st, 2013 at 8:55 PM ^
I'm curious how this all came about. Michigan participates in the Yellow Ribbon program, so if you get 100% G.I. Bill benefits then the university covers the rest of your tuition(what they did for me when I came back for grad school) and I believe has some sort of matching for partial benefits as well. I think there's more to the story here.
February 21st, 2013 at 10:14 PM ^
February 21st, 2013 at 11:48 PM ^
February 22nd, 2013 at 9:33 AM ^
How many vets have gone to Michigan? Hundreds? Thousands? And yet this kid is the first to have a problem and he responds by calling out the University as discriminating. More likely he made some error and the attempt at publicity to shame the U into covering for him is pathetic.
February 22nd, 2013 at 10:03 AM ^
He's not the first. Have you read the responses in this thread?
February 21st, 2013 at 9:01 PM ^
I had a similar situation with UM and it took an entire semester to straighten it out. It was all because i happened to have mailed my grad school application from St. Petersburg, Russia. My permanent address had remained in MI throughout my time in Russia but the uni didn't seem to care. It wasn't until i took my passport to a meeting and read the visa information to those concerned that it got fixed.
But if this guy actually changed his residency, filed taxes in another state, etc. while in the military i don't see why the UM should give him in-state tuition.
February 21st, 2013 at 9:01 PM ^
February 21st, 2013 at 9:11 PM ^
February 21st, 2013 at 9:11 PM ^
February 21st, 2013 at 9:43 PM ^
February 21st, 2013 at 9:22 PM ^
Before people go apeshit on the University, can someone who actually knows the situation explain what the University's policy is and how it's applied here?
February 21st, 2013 at 9:27 PM ^
The university has an incredibly strict policy regarding in-state vs out of state even among other state universities. They do this because they make so much more on out of state students, the current plan is for the school to actually be 50%-50% in state vs out of state sometime in the next few years. The fact that they would do this really is not surprising. Mary sue has been good for the school in a lot of ways but under her leadership the endowment has grown but the amount of aide given to students has hardly kept up with tuition increases. Apparently the focus of the next fundraising campaign is student aide so hopefully there will be a change in this soon.
February 21st, 2013 at 10:15 PM ^
"the amount of aide given to students has hardly kept up with tuition increases."
This is not entirely true. Under current financial aid policy, all in-state students have 100% need met. Yes, out of state students get screwed on that side, but in-state students should not have a problem paying for UM.
February 22nd, 2013 at 7:01 AM ^
Not only does Michigan have about the strictest requirements to receive in-state tuition, it also has, I believe, the highest out of state tuition of any public university. Compared to other B1G schools, tuition for OOS students is off the charts, typically averaging over 10 K more than most of the other public U's in the conference. I wonder how many top OOS students choose other institutions over Michigan based on costs.
As for the mix of instate vs OOS, I thought the ratio was currently about 65/35, so going to a 50/50 mix would have significant impact upon the landscape and a major disaster for kids from Michigan who are fortunate to have such a great university being subsidized by OOS students. Considering how little the state of Michigan actually contributes these days in terms of funding to the school, switching the balance makes the financial side of things much easier, as long as there are people willing to pay the cost of attendance. Based on the number of applications, that doesn't seem to be an issue.
February 21st, 2013 at 9:48 PM ^
February 21st, 2013 at 10:25 PM ^
February 21st, 2013 at 10:51 PM ^
Yup. Before I take sides, I want to see the last state tax return this guy had on file. For example my cousin is from New York, was stationed in Florida, and then deployed elsewhere. He opted to start filing Florida returns due to the favorable state rates there, got his driver's license there, etc. When he went to Stony Brook, he was considered out of state.
If something like that is the case here, once you file elsewhere, you stop being a resident.
February 21st, 2013 at 9:58 PM ^
<kanye> UM hates Veterans </kanye>
Saying that, these men and women should get free tuition.
February 21st, 2013 at 10:24 PM ^
February 21st, 2013 at 10:37 PM ^
but just wanted it to be know that:
Agree with the student.
February 21st, 2013 at 10:42 PM ^
...but did he really need to flash the "discrimination" card. Seems fairly isolated and correctable. Next up, Michigan "discriminates" against sub-3.0 GPA, no national honor society member, JV sports playing, couldn't find a date for prom high school senior.
I can just see it in front of the Michigan Union:
Rally Leader: "WHAT DO WE WANT?!"
Rally: "EQUALITY FOR AVERAGE STUDENTS!"
Rally Leader: "WHEN DO WE WANT IT?!"
Rally: "NOW!"
February 21st, 2013 at 11:53 PM ^
February 22nd, 2013 at 1:08 AM ^
...with what you are saying for the most. Contextually speaking, the manner in which the OP present his/her post says that UM discriminates against veterans (meaning all veterans). Based on the anecdotes of many former veteran posters on this board, its seems that this is not the case (in fact quite the opposite) and that this is somewhat of an oversight that can be fixed. Still no need to through around the word discriminate in this case.
Before I forget, for those who have served this country, thanks a ton. Always appreciated.
February 22nd, 2013 at 12:03 AM ^
So, as some regular readers know, my 19 year old daughter recently enlisted in the Navy. In fact, she is part way through boot camp right now. Her rating requires almost 2 years of A & C school after boot camp, and then 4 years of active duty, for a total of about 6 years. We live in the Chicago area, and one of the reasons she isn't at UofM is that there is no way she or I can afford it. Out of state costs are just too high for us.
Here's my question. Several have stated that residency for vets is established by the state they choose once in the service. So, if you choose "Texas" as your legal state of residence, you pay Texas state taxes, and are considered a Texas resident (and thus, not a Michigan resident.) I'm really curious if the reverse is true. That is to say if my daughter established Michigan as her State of residence at the beginning of Navy "A" school, and continued this for her six years of continuous service, would she be considered an in-state resident by the University of Michigan, having had more than five years of continuous uninterrupted "residency?" You can see this has important future tuition ramifications and implications. The GI Bill offers her 180k towards college costs once she is done with active duty. At in-state rates starting in 2019, 180k just might cover most of a Michigan education. And if she is able to establish residence simply by a declaration of residency, that's worth considering.
I do know that UofM has always been harsh regarding the establishment of (and losing of) in-state and out-of-state status. Way back in my day, my parents moved away from Michigan part way through my undergraduate education (just before my junior year.) It was at that point that I became independent and not dependent, and that my parents no longer claimed me on their taxes. I didn't dare do anything to jeopardize my Michigan in-state resident status.
February 22nd, 2013 at 12:12 AM ^
February 22nd, 2013 at 12:49 AM ^
Technically speaking, when she is presented the form to establish a state of residency, she only has two legal choices: where she came from and where she is stationed. You're not allowed to just pick any of the 50 states. I don't know how fully the military enforces that. If Grandma and Grandpa or Aunt Millie or Cousin Bob live in Michigan and she uses that address, the Navy would probably let her get away with that, although I can't say whether the IRS or state agency would bird-dog her for proof. And it sounds like U-M certainly would.
She can change her state of residency, by the way, any time she gets re-stationed. But, and this is important, once she changes it she can't change it back. In other words if she gets stationed in California and picks Illinois as her state of residency, she can keep Illinois as long as she wants. If she then moves to hypothetically Virginia and changes to Virginia, she can't go back to Illinois unless she's stationed there again, nor for that matter, California.
Also, the GI Bill doesn't offer a lump sum. The $180K figure probably came from someone saying "if such and such than this is how much you'd get"; they like to put it in dollar figures instead of running you through the convoluted state-by-state formula and that $180K that was quoted also probably includes housing allowance, which you get while you're getting GI Bill funds. The way it used to be calculated is that, whichever state you were getting your education in, that state's most expensive instate tuition was the tuition money you'd get. So if U-M is the most expensive school and it's $9,000 a year for instate students (I made that up) then studying in Michigan gets you up to $9,000 a year regardless of what school you choose. (You don't get to pocket the difference by going to a cheaper school.) It's similar still but different somehow and more complicated and I'm not too sure what exactly they do now. Also, schools that participate in the Yellow Ribbon program will cover between half and 100% of the difference between the GI Bill and the actual tuition, if tuition is more expensive.
February 22nd, 2013 at 1:07 AM ^
February 22nd, 2013 at 10:36 AM ^
Undergrad, yes, forgot that part. As I understood it part of the reason they changed it was that they needed to shuffle money around because there was a hue and cry about wanting vo-tech schools to be paid for too, but they weren't going to get any extra money to do so. So they had to move some away from the college pool.
I'm buggered now if I know exactly what the calculation is anymore. You'd think I would since I'm taking their money.
February 22nd, 2013 at 9:11 AM ^
If you are really interested in your daughter attending the UofM, you really need to speak to the veterans advisor (Phil Larson) on campus to explore your options before closing the door for good. Also, ask about the Yellow Ribbon Program. It negates out-of-state tuition costs, and UofM is fully participating.