Lawmakers want to make it more difficult for out-of-state students to gain residency.
For the past few years, the Higher Education Appropriations Committee has discussed changing Utah’s lenient residency laws to make sure that students who apply for residency in the state are planning to stay after graduation.
Wednesday the House Education Committee unanimously supported a bill that would do just that.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jeff Alexander, R-Provo, said this year it is extremely important to implement such change.
Since the fiscal year began in July 2001, the state’s colleges and universities have operated on trimmed budget where more than $21.8 million has been slashed this year. The $268 million tax-revenue shortfall leaves the state without the ability to adequately fund higher education in a year of unprecedented enrollment growth.
“The state is paying a lot of students?not to live and work in Utah?but to go to school,” Alexander said.
The state’s laws are much more lenient than most states, said Cecelia Foxley, commissioner of higher education.
Under current law, a student may gain residency status in a year, “but the system is poorly monitored and the policies seem to differ from school to school,” Alexander said.
Among other qualifications, the proposed bill would require students to take 60 credit hours, obtain a Utah driver’s license, and file for taxes within the state before they are qualified to apply for residency.
“The question is: are [the students] here to go to school or are they here to be a resident? We want an individual to show that he wants to stay in the state,” Alexander said.
Under the proposed legislation a students must live here and work here before state dollars are going to be used to educate them, Foxley said.
The full House will now review the bill.