By Robert Kittle
All military veterans and their dependents will now be charged in-state tuition at South Carolina’s public colleges and universities, regardless of where they’re from. Gov. Nikki Haley signed the law Tuesday at USC Aiken, surrounded by veterans who are students there.
“When you are in South Carolina, if you served our country you are family, and you are part of the South Carolina family, and in this state if you or your dependent decides to go to school we’re going to treat you like a South Carolinian because you deserve that,” Gov. Haley said.
Army veteran Gregory Ware, who did a tour in Iraq from 2006 to 2007, is now at USC Aiken and will finish his civil engineering degree at USC in Columbia. He lives in Augusta, Georgia, so this new law will help him. “Without this bill being passed into law, I wouldn’t be able to go there without paying out of pocket,” he says.
Marine veteran Tommy Gardner, a USC Aiken sophomore, says paying in-state tuition instead of out-of-state makes a huge difference. “For me, it translates to about $4,500, which is a fairly significant amount, but for somebody coming in, say a freshman coming in who might be in the same shoes, that could translate to, you know, a very hefty sum over a few years.”
According to the state Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office, as of February 2015 there were 1,086 out-of-state veterans going to South Carolina public colleges and universities. Letting them pay in-state tuition will mean the state’s colleges will lose up to $14.7 million a year. But the office also says a federal law requires the state to offer veterans in-state tuition by July 1, 2015. If lawmakers had not passed the bill and the governor hadn’t signed it into law, South Carolina’s colleges would lose almost $52 million in federal VA education benefits.
Gov. Haley says the new law will benefit the entire state, not just veterans and their dependents. “What we’re seeing is that we’re recruiting a lot of veterans back into South Carolina. That is very helpful when we’re recruiting companies to South Carolina because they love to hire veterans,” she says. “So for me, it’s a great recruiting tool.”
The law goes into effect July 1, so veterans will pay in-state tuition this fall.