Exchange program
offers tuition break
Midwest students get lower out-of-state rates
By Erin Schulte
Senior Reporter
Students in McCook, Falls City or
South Sioux City have to make a
longer haul to UNL than universities
in other states.
Some students wanting to study in
a program UNL doesn’t offer might
want to go somewhere else and not pay
out-of-state tuition.
The Midwest Student Exchange
Program was created for them.
Although the program was started
three years ago, few college students
know about it. Odus Elliott, academic
officer for the Coordinating Commis
sion for Post-secondary Education,
which operates the program, said that’s
because the program mainly targets
Nebraska high school students.
The program allows students to at
tend colleges and universities in Kan
sas, Michigan, Minnesota and Mis
souri for 150 percent of their in-state
tuition. This is beneficial to students
who grew up closer to the borders of
those states or want to study at a pro
gram a nearby Nebraska institution
may not offer, Elliot said.
In turn, students from those states
can come to Nebraska colleges and
universities for 150 percent of
Nebraska’s in-state tuition. All states ~
involved are members of the Midwest
ern Higher Education Commission,
which ineludes. nine states.
Students in the program can save,
between $506 and $3,000 a semester.u
Elliott said the program was cre
ated to encourage die states to work
together to make their academic pro
grams more readily available.
There are no grade requirements
for students to participate in the pro
gram, Elliott said, although Kansas
requires that participants be in the top
quarter of their class.
UNL has only eight students this
year coming in from other states un
der the program, Elliott said.
But that’s mosdy because of geog
raphy, he said— more border towns
in Nebraska are closer to out-of-state
institutions.
“Nebraska is #big exporter of stu
dents rightnow,” Elliott said. “We send
out a lot mfer& l^taa are coming into,,
the state.” X r ° '"^s)
More college students finding
jobs are a must for expenses
OMAHA (AP)—University of
Nebraska-Lincoln student Kim
Carlton’s answering machine tells
callers “by the time I get my mes
sages, it’s really late.”
But the senior isn’t out party
ing with friends or cramming ig the
library. Like an increasing number
> of students, Carlton is wigging
those late-night hours, trying to pay
for increasing college costs and a
more expensive lifestyle.
More students are forking
longer hours than ever before, the
Omaha World-Herald reported
Sunday. Close to 28 percent of
young, full-time college students
worked 20 or more hours per week
in 1994, almost double the percent
age that worked that much in 1970.
“More than 20 hours and we
start seeing an impact on their aca
demics,” Janie Barnett, assistant
financial aid director at Iowa State
University and president-elect of
the National Association of Student
Employment Administrators, told
the newspaper.
Carlton, 23, takes a foil load of
classes and holds two jobs, work
ing 55 hours a week to help pay for
school. That’s a lot more than av
erage: Only |.8 percent of college
students worked 35 hours or more
in 1994, up from 3.7 percent in
1970.
The U.S. Education Department
reports that in 1994, die most re
cent year for which statistics are
available, 47.6 percent of hill-time
college students 24 years of age and
younger were employed. The per
centage has risen steadily from 33.8
in 1970.
They are working for a variety
of reasons. The rising cost of at
tending college is the most obvious.
But college administrators also say
students have other extras, like
computers and stereos, to pay for.
The Education Department’s
statistics on working college stu
dents go back only to 1970. But
Vance Grant, a statistics specialist
in the Education Department in
Washington, D.C., told the news
paper thatit is reasonable to assume
that the percentage of college stu
dents working has reached an all
time high.
Earlier this century, he said, the
bulk of college students were from
middle- and high-income families.
Many of them received backing
from their parents and did not have
to work their way through school,
he said. ,
Rising college costs, students
and college administrators say,
have compelled many to go to work
to help pay tuition and other costs.
At UNL, tuition, fees, room and
board increased 60 percent from
$3,255 in the fall of 1984 to $5,200
in fall 1994. That outpaced infla
tion by 17 percentage points.
Julie Zimmerman, a senior at
Nebraska Wesleyan University in
Lincoln, has an academic scholar
ship, two scholarships from orga
nizations and receives assistance
from her parents in Plymouth.
A private university, Nebraska
Wesleyan is charging $10,284 this
year for tuition alone.
The business major says, she
works about 15 hours a week to pay
part of the cost as well as to have
some spending money. There’s an
added bonus too — she has made
contacts in part-time jobs at the
Nebraska Education Department,
the Nebraska Wesleyan financial
aid office and elsewhere.
“It just teaches you to priori
tize,” Zimmerman said. “You know
if you have some free time, you’d
better get your (school) work done
first.”
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Offices move into ballroom
as construction nears
MOVING from page 1
bicle spaces while others will be distracted by
the open areas, she said.
But the staff should be able to meet students’
needs just as well, she said. The staff will use
the same phone and computer lines and be just
as organized, she said.
“I don’t picture our services altering much,”
Bugenhagen said. “It’s just the physical space
that’s a mess.”
John Graham, a senior graphic design ma
jor, said the transition week would be difficult
for him and the rest of the staff, but the new
offices were well organized.
As the graphic artist for Student Involve
ment, Graham’s biggest worry was the reliabil
ity of computers with the temporary wiring, he
said.
The close quarters may also cause a lot of
noise and distractions, he said.
However, communication might be im
proved by having all the offices so close to
gether, he said. The union administration and
Student Involvement offices formerly were
down the hall from each other.
Graham will graduate before the renovation
project is done, but he said he still recognized
the benefits.
“It’s a good thing to do, but it’s still a hassle.”
Bugenhagen said that after the staff vacates
the offices, construction crews will remove as
bestos from the areas where the union connects
to the expanded parts.
The expansion will give Student Involve
ment more space so it can offer more services
to student organizations, she said.
Among those services would be more com
puters for students to keep records for their or
ganizations or maintain web sites, mailboxes
for student organizations, a wall-sized calen
dar with a year’s worth of event listings and
storage space, Bugenhagen said.
“It’s worth the sacrifice for 16 or 18 months
to have everything students will have when it’s
done.”
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