Out-of-state students at the University of Colorado are increasingly petitioning the school to gain in-state status, which, if approved, gives them an annual tuition break of about $20,000.
Between 2008 and 2010, the number of petitions that CU received from non-resident students claiming they had established residency increased by about 14 percent. About nine out of 10 of the 1,389 CU-Boulder students who filed petitions in 2010 were granted in-state status.
Officials can only speculate what's causing the increase: Perhaps, the weak economy has caused parents of out-of-state students to lose jobs, prompting those students to then become financially responsible for their tuition. But the number of non-resident undergraduate students between 2008 and 2010 declined from 8,620 students to 8,574 -- so it's not an increase in out-of-state students spurring the trend.
Regardless, a new company called "Tuition Angels" is trying to capitalize on the interest in gaining in-state tuition.