Incoming freshmen from six Ohio counties will continue to pay in-state tuition to attend Ball State University this Fall, Tom Morrison, Ball State VP of Human Resources and State Relations, said.
The board of trustees renewed the Ohio Reciprocity Agreement July 20, after approval from both the Indiana Commission for Higher Education and Ohio Board of Regents earlier in the month.
The agreement allows students from Butler, Darke, Mercer, Preble, Shelby and Van Wert counties of Ohio to attend various universities in Indiana at the same cost of those living in-state.
Other Indiana universities offering the reduced tuition to out-of-state residents include Indiana University, Ivy Tech State College and Purdue University Statewide Technology.
Similarly, eight Ohio universities offer the same to students from Adams, Blackford, Delaware, Fayette, Franklin, Henry, Jay, Randolph, Rush, Union, Wayne and Wells counties of Indiana who attend certain universities in Ohio.
Ohio universities participating in the agreement include Miami University, Sinclair Community College and Wright State University.
The agreement is renewed every year in order to strengthen it's terms, tweak the language and add more institutions, Morrison said.
Due to a disparity of Indiana students participating in the agreement and enrolling in Ohio universities, this year's renewal came with a new stipulation, he said.
The Ohio Board of Regents will be required to report on their marketing tactics to the Indiana Commission, Jeff Stanley, Associate Commissioner for Policy and Planning at the Indiana Commission said.
"We don't like to get involved in the internal business of the institutions," Jack Connell, of Ohio Board of Regents, said of the board's role in marketing tactics for Ohio universities.
Due to restrictions by law, the board is limited to coordinating, rather than governing, financial and degree program approval, he said.
"We'd like to see what they've done so far and like to take the best ideas and help support those efforts," Connell said.
The new marketing strategy of all Ohio colleges will be announced in September and attempt to unite the institutions as one university system rather than more individualized approaches, he said.
Universities in southern Ohio such as the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati State Community and Technical College are also being pursued to join the agreement this year, but discussions are still in the works, Stanley said.
Both schools were asked in previous years but declined to partake because they were satisfied with their current arrangement the "contract for space agreement," he said.
Ohio has similar reciprocity agreements with all surrounding bordering states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Kentucky and West Virginia, Connell said.
"The idea is to eliminate these arbitrary borders to create better access by eliminating out-of-state surcharge," he said.
Morrison said about 300 students from the participating Ohio counties attend Ball State.
The agreement has been in effect and renewed yearly since 2004.
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