WICHE Media Mentions
More than 200 institutions seeking support on active learning initiatives will have help over the next four years from Every Learning Everywhere, a network of 12 digital learning organizations--of which WICHE is the central organizing intermediary--with $13.5 million in funding provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
In North Dakota specifically, 500 residents saved $2.7 million on out-of-state tuition through WICHE's three Student Access Programs: the Western Undergraduate Exchange, the Western Regional Graduate Program, and the Professional Student Exchange Program. "WICHE's tuition-savings programs broaden the affordable higher education options for our residents — helping them graduate with less debt and ultimately strengthening our workforce," said N.D. State Sen. Ray Holmberg, chairman of the WICHE commission. "These programs also help our colleges and universities draw students from other western states, which fills revenue-producing seats, diversifies their campuses and bolsters bottom lines for institutions and communities."
As a high school senior, Arezo Amerzada’s choices for college came down to University of California-Riverside, several California State University campuses and a handful of out-of-state schools, including the University of Nevada in Reno. That was when Amerzada, who grew up in Union City in the San Francisco Bay Area, learned about the WICHE's Western Undergraduate Exchange program. The increasingly popular program gives California students steep tuition discounts at dozens of colleges and universities in nearby states. The University of Nevada was one of them.
Getting the tuition discount was the “deciding factor of where I wanted to go,” Amerzada said from Reno, where she is a senior majoring in human development and family studies. She is one of nearly 2,500 California students at the university who received the tuition discount last year. At $11,124 this year, the cost of tuition and fees through the exchange is about half the usual rate for out-of-state students, according to the university.
While the exchange helps only a sliver of California’s college-bound students, the state has become the top exporter of students among 15 states in the exchange.