In-state tuition for scholarship athletes proposals re-emerges

A bill that would save athletic booster clubs money by allowing state universities to charge in-state tuition rates for out-of-state scholarship athletes popped back up at the legislature Wednesday and cleared a House committee.

Senate Bill 144 made it to the House floor once before this session, but was pulled back into committee in July, and it had been sitting there since. After Wednesday's vote in the House budget committee that focuses on education, it's ready for another trip to the House floor.

The idea in the bill has been bandied about for years: Go back to letting universities that want to charge the lower in-state rate, freeing up more scholarship money for sports.

"It'll save (booster clubs) money," Rep. Craig Horn, R-Union, who chaired Wednesday's committee, said after the meeting. "Millions, that may be a stretch, but certainly it will save them money."

The bill was pitched as a way to help smaller schools with less robust athletic fundraising arms build their programs.

The state already lets campuses designate out-of-state students attending on academic scholarships as in-state students, saving those scholarship funds money. This bill would extend that to athletic scholarships as well.

The state once allowed this but changed the policy during the last recession to save money.

The state subsidizes in-state student tuition.