GETTING THE MISSION RIGHT. State universities quote state residents a lower rate, reflecting some recognition of taxes paid or taxes anticipated. Nonresident students pay a higher rate, notionally reflecting fully allocated costs. Although the taxpayer-benefit and allocated-cost arguments are long-established, they are survivals of efforts by state legislatures to reduce the influx of out-of-state protestors (nobody being so crass as to say "East Coast Jews") to midwestern campuses during the Vietnam era. The mathematics of fully-allocated cost include a healthy dose of leverage: make your nut at a standard volume, but if you can enlarge the proportion of out-of-state students while holding enrollment constant, you can bring in additional revenue, or perhaps replace appropriations a stingy legislature has taken away. The dean at Anonymous Community suggests the dynamics of revenue replacement are unstable.

In discussions I've had with state legislators, the issues that prick up their ears are the number of students who live in their district, the number of employees who live in their district, and the relationships we have with employers in their district. Out-of-state students don't count. And I don't want to have the conversation in which I try to explain why our scarce marketing dollars are being spent out-of-state.

Even leaving the politics aside, there's a basic irrationality to the entire idea. If we simply traded a third of our student body with a counterpart school across the state line, what, exactly, would we have achieved? As near as I can tell, we'd simply shift more of the cost of instruction onto students, thereby effectively licensing our home state to make even more cuts. If the students keep paying, why not? And it's not like those students vote here anyway.

No. It's not what cc's are for, and the long-term cost would dwarf any short-term gains. I get the 'premium tuition' argument -- this week, more than ever -- but some premiums just aren't worth it.

Mild disagreement on the voting: students are free to register with college town city clerks -- how else the majority for George McGovern in Madison? -- but the economics of leverage are remorseless in the trading of students. (On the other hand, Minnesota and Wisconsin have maintained, despite recent difficulties, a reciprocity agreement in which residents of either state pay the in-state rate in either state. Swapping leftish Lutherans across the Mississippi is a different proposition from bringing in those East Coast radicals.)

The Anonymous Community post is a reaction to an Inside Higher Ed column on the phenomenon of recruiting out-of-state students that focuses primarily on the horizontal equity of such policies.

A concern for the universities seeking more out-of-state students, [University of Vermont president Daniel] Fogel said, is a shift away from public mission. "There is the risk of subtly and not so subtly undermining the public mission," he said. "Then you are like a private university that isn't at the top of the pecking order, looking for the sweet spot of the kids who are qualified to come and can pay all or most of the cost, and that's a pretty market-driven agenda."

In this instance, it's a market-driven agenda that does the right thing. See "Addressing the Excess Demand for Prestige Degrees."

I have maintained for some time now that the wise strategy for the flagship universities and the mid-majors has been to cater to that excess demand rather than give into the mob's demand for universal access, standards be d**ned, and that such a strategy is not likely to be fostered by urging faculty to forever be testing the job market. It doesn't have to be Princeton or Harvard offering that "very high quality" of education as the efforts of Illinois and Wisconsin to go after Coasties as a way of increasing the revenue yield.

Why not aspire to making Vermont a public Ivy, President Fogel?

At Inside Higher Ed, however, we see the Diversity Boondoggle's contortions.

Others share that concern. Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, said he worried about any state -- like California -- that moves to recruit more out-of-state students at a time when there are qualified residents losing slots, and those being recruited are likely to be less diverse than the residents of the state. He noted that most University of California campuses have more ethnic and racial diversity than much of American higher education. "So now that the majority of kids in the state will be more Latino, you are going to recruit more out-of-state students" who are likely to be white? he asked.

I can only interpret "less diverse" to mean "too white." Is the goal of the Californian system to have a student body that looks like Mesoamerica, which will put aspiring California fast-trackers at an even greater disadvantage in Reloville, or might diversity mean bringing in cultural diversity from the Great Plains?

While Berkeley officials and UC faculty members have said that they believe any lost slots in California will build political pressure to support higher education, Callan said he was "very skeptical." He said he doesn't see signs that the public would respond in that way. "There's a danger here that you cut off your long-term support," he said.

Or you might change the direction of citizen activism. See "Can One Really Discipline Commuter Students?"

Milwaukee has been primarily a commuter campus for residents of Southeastern Wisconsin. With Madison solving some of its budget problems by expanding enrollment of Coasties, there are more Wisconsin residents enrolled at Milwaukee than at Madison. That some would attempt to introduce the residential college experience into their neighborhood does not come as a surprise.

That's been a perennial theme here. Wisconsin or Illinois are reasonable substitutes for Harvard or Stanford (perhaps not for long, considering recent developments) that attracts more applications from the coasts. Do the administrators at Milwaukee or Northern Illinois simply tell frustrated Badgers or Runs-from-Huskies that their institutions are good enough, or do they make the efforts to provide comparable intellectual challenges?

Inside Higher Ed prefers to elaborate the equity issues.

At the same time, Callan acknowledged that in California and elsewhere, state officials considering these options face terrible budgets. "It's the dysfunctional nature of state government that makes these things possible."

David L. Kirp, a professor of public policy at Berkeley and the author of Shakespeare, Einstein and the Bottom Line: The Marketing of Higher Education, said he viewed the out-of-state trend as "one of those lamentable necessities." He said that the University of California campuses and some other flagships have been "an equal opportunity gateway" for so many low-income students. Ultimately, he said that these plans work financially only by going after well-off students, and thus can encourage universities in that direction. You can easily end up, he said, with public universities "with a private school profile."

Perhaps so. But see "The Issue is Insufficient Selectivity"

The argument presupposes that tuition increases, particularly at state-subsidized colleges, are unreasonable per se. The ratings-driven excess-demand-generating below-equilibrium tuitions at the private universities shift some applicants to state universities, implying a ceteris paribus increase in the selectivity rankings there and perhaps an incentive for administrators to resist raising their tuitions and fees so as to further enhance their selectivity rankings.

Genl Grant had to fight it out on his line for one year. I've been at it somewhat longer, but I've not been persuaded that the course Inside Higher Ed's interviewees recommend, which is the status quo inside higher ed, will work.