In April 2012 WICHE staff conducted an online survey of Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) institutions. WUE – a regional tuition-reciprocity agreement that enables students from WICHE states to enroll in participating two- and four-year public institutions at 150 percent of the enrolling institution’s resident tuition – is the largest program of its kind in the nation. Since the first exchanges began in 1988, WUE has provided students and their parents with discounts on more than 328,650 annual tuition bills, saving them an estimated $1.76 billion. Currently, there are 150 WUE institutions: 112 responded to the survey.

The survey found that majority of respondents (72 percent) plan to maintain their WUE enrollments at approximately the same level as last year; 24 percent intend to increase them; and only 4 percent will decrease them. Over the last five years, WUE enrollment grew an average of 6 percent per year, though 2010 to 2011 saw an 8.1 percent boost. California was the top state that WUE institutions recruited from (62 percent of the respondents said they had); also popular were Colorado (59 percent), Oregon (49 percent), and Washington (50 percent).

Most respondents (72 percent) make all majors available at the WUE rate; 24 percent make most of majors available. Some institutions exclude majors where there are large in-state enrollments: nursing is the most commonly excluded major. Others are kinesiology, psychology, dental hygiene, radiology, digital filmmaking (a high-cost program), biology, business, national park ranger studies, American Sign Language studies, and American Sign Language/English interpreting.

Eighty-one percent of respondents require WUE applicants to meet the same academic standards as their resident applicants; 21 percent use WUE as a merit scholarship and require applicants to meet higher academic standards than residents. Transfer students benefit from WUE too: 89 percent of respondents offer the WUE rate to them.

Online studies are also an option for WUE students: 46 percent of respondents award the WUE rate to students enrolled in fully online or hybrid programs, while 43 percent said they don’t; and 11 percent don’t offer such courses.

September 2012  | Share this on Twitter | Post this on Facebook