By Todd Hatton/AP
Carbondale, IL – Southern Illinois University in Carbondale next fall will begin offering in-state tuition to
first-year students from neighboring Missouri, Kentucky and Indiana.
And the school's chancellor, Samuel Goldman, is hoping for big things. SIU's enrollment has languished for the past couple of decades, proving so vexing it cost a top administrator his job in 2006.
Goldman hopes the reduced tuition will help the school build its enrollment and be a more viable player in what has become a bidding war of sorts across the country over prospective students seeking bargains in a bad economy.
Goldman calls it perhaps the most competitive environment he's seen in higher education.
SIU's in-state rates will be about $10,000 less a year than what the school's out-of-state students now pay.