Like many in my profession, I question my financial future
on a daily basis in light of the soul-crushing load of debt that I casually
picked up in exchange for a fancy law degree.
This, in part, is why I sympathize with today’s plaintiff and respect
his dedication to the cause of “stickin’ it to the tuition man.”
If you have experienced the vagaries of modern-day
educational funding, particularly at state-funded university, then you may also
find today’s student-plaintiff to be your personal hero, however amusingly
flawed.
To understand our hero’s epic struggle with the educational
bureaucracy, you must comprehend in-state vs. out-of-state tuition status
decisions at UVM. The Vermont
Legislature gave UVM the ability to define eligibility for reduced in-state tuition
charges, but it insisted that the school maintain the presumption that a
student who establishes his residence in Vermont simply to attend UVM does so
for the purpose of in-state tuition status and should be denied. In other words, the Legislature handed UVM a
statutory euphemism for “take every dime you can get from the itinerant student
bloc and keep it that way.”
The UVM In-State Status Regs read a bit like a list of
“we’ve got this covered because we’ve seen it before.” Regulation 3 excludes from “residence” a home
established for the purpose of attending UVM.
Regulation 4 presumes that someone who becomes a student within a year
of moving to Vermont is in Vermont to attend school. And Regulation 7 presumes that financial
support from one’s family means you are domiciled with your family, domicile
being defined by Regulation 1 as a student’s “true, fixed, and permanent home”
to which he intends to return.
Reasonable, right?
But what if you’re the one on the receiving end of an icy “you don’t
qualify, flatlander” reply from the financial aid office, who proceeds to
charge you with double the in-state tuition rate? You can understand why the interplay of
in-state vs. out-of-state tuition rates is neither as simple nor as fair as it
appears.
Enter our plucky young student-hero, who unwittingly
disqualified his future self for in-state tuition merely by settling here with
the intent to better himself. In 2007,
student moved to Vermont to attend the University of Vermont (“UVM”), drawn by
the school’s medical programs. During
student’s 2008-09 freshman year, he was accepted into a UVM’s
pre-med-straight-to-med-school program.
He anticipated starting medical school in 2011.
Life As An Adult (™) may, but need not necessarily, include
a few expensive years at a university such as UVM, with a $30,000+/year
out-of-state tuition rate. It often also
comes with a nagging need to support oneself while studying for a living. Let’s just say that, like many young
university kids, student got a few parental handouts from Dad from time to time.
Student eventually decided, like many transplants do, that
he had fallen in love with Vermont and wanted to stay. Coincidentally, around the same time student
also decided he was done paying out-of-state tuition. In June 2010, student applied for in-state
tuition for the Fall 2010 semester. UVM
denied the application, and denied his administrative appeal. UVM 1 Student 0.
It was around this time, or shortly after, that the size of
the handouts increased a bit, a fact which itself coincided with student’s
application for med school the following year.
Over the course of student’s senior year, 2010-11, student received a
special, magical, and later unexplainable, $47,000 boost to his education trust
fund.
After his initial defeat at the beginning of his junior
year, student requested in December 2010 in-state tuition status for the Spring
2011 semester. Student was essentially
done with his undergrad degree, but wanted to take a few electives and increase
his chances of being picked up by UVM’s med school. Alas the University denied the
application. UVM 2 Student 0.
Student apparently then either ran out of money or decided
he didn’t need those electives anyway.
He didn’t take any Spring classes.
One might imagine that our hero was defeated at this point. One would be wrong.
Toward graduation in the Spring of 2011, Dad agreed to
co-sign on a loan for house he would co-own with student--a house worth over
$400,000. That’s right, this kid got a
near half-million dollar house out of the whole deal, all on a student salary
of $13,000-15,000 per year. Did I say I
was sympathetic?
Student tried a third time in March 2011, and requested
in-state tuition status for a few Summer courses, shortly before he was
accepted to UVM’s med school. UVM denied
his application, and upheld the decision on appeal. UVM 3 Student 0.
Through Summer 2011, or shortly before it, student gathered
some ammunition. He got a job working
part-time at the airport. He also
realized he should be (or had been) paying state income taxes, carrying around
a Vermont driver’s license, registering to vote in Vermont, and banking in
Vermont.
Fourth time’s always the charm, so what the heck, student
took another shot. In August 2011, armed
with his new weapons of residency indicia, student asked again for in-state
status. This time it was for the 2011-2012
academic year, his first year of med school and, one might imagine, something
of a lesser end boss.
You know what’s coming--another steaming slag pile of denial
for student. In its decision, UVM was
clear that its decision was based on student’s failure to provide clear and
convincing evidence sufficient to rebut the presumption that he was an
itinerant student. UVM 4 Student 0. Ouch.
This time, student got fed up, and invoked the lesser deity
of the superior court appeal. UVM moved
for dismissal/partial summary judgment.
The trial court granted UVM’s motion.
Regulation 4 didn’t apply because student had lived in Vermont for more
than a year before applying to med school.
Student had also sufficiently demonstrated he had established a domicile
in Vermont. But, the trial court
concluded, UVM was ultimately right--he hadn’t met his burden to rebut the
presumption.
Hosed.
If fighting the good administrative fight were a video game,
the SCOV would be the end boss. Student
finds himself in a distinctly Davidian position, goliath institutions breathing
down on him and one paltry victory under his belt from the trial court’s
acknowledgement that he was, for all intents and purposes, in fact domiciled in
Vermont.
Out comes the appellate sword (snickersnack!), only to be
crossed with UVM’s own. Student appeals
to the SCOV on UVM’s denial. UVM
cross-appeals on the trial court’s interpretation of its regulations.
The standard of review on today’s case is a bit different
because the SCOV is reviewing an administrative decision. The SCOV will work from scratch with the
evidence presented to UVM, uphold the trial court’s factual findings unless
clearly erroneous, and grant deference to UVM’s interpretation of its own
regulations.
Student’s beefs get addressed initially, namely that 1) the
trial court concluded student was domiciled in Vermont, but still upheld UVM’s
denial, and 2) the amended version of Reg 3 applied here, excluding from
“residence” a home established for the purpose of attending UVM, was
inapplicable, unreasonable, inconsistent with enabling legislation, and
unconstitutional under both state and federal constitutions.
The SCOV initially notes with regards to student’s
“domicile” argument that the trial court’s conclusion on that point is
basically meaningless. The SCOV is
looking at UVM’s findings and conclusions with fresh eyes, not the court
below’s.
In addition, we’re talking about university “domicile,” not
“common-law domicile.” Not only does UVM
set an arbitrary one-year mark before a student can apply for in-state tuition,
its regulations set up presumptions and criteria that are not usually
considered in deciding domicile in other contexts. Quite a different scheme.
With that in mind, the SCOV tallies up UVM’s findings for the
final score. In one column are the
product of student’s having gone through the motions to establish residency
(driver’s license, voter registration, etc.), and his seemingly earnest desire
to stay in Vermont. In the other are the
fact that: 1) student did move to Vermont to attend UVM; 2) his timing in
applying/starting med school was suspicious; 3) he had in fact had some
handouts from out-of-state Dad; 4) he found a magical
education-trust-fund-balloon fairy; and 5) right before he started med school
Dad basically handed him a house he could not possibly afford.
Sorry, student--UVM’s conclusions were reasonable given
these facts. It is what it is.
The SCOV gives a nod to the fact that student does seem to
intend to stay. But an educational
resident establishing a “domicile” is about the most likely demographic to move
into a state, take advantage of its benefits, then say “sayonara” 4-5 years
later. That in itself justifies the
Legislature’s decision to support potential Vermonter UVM attendees by
instituting reasonable rules governing in-state tuition qualification that weed
out the flatlanders intent on moving back home after graduation. The SCOV understands that overcoming the
presumption to get in-state tuition is “a heavy” burden. But what the Legislature wants, the
Legislature gets.
UVM 5 Student 0.
And, true to form, the SCOV dodges student’s constitutional flail after
countering his initial front. The SCOV’s
decision is limited to the domicile question.
The SCOV deals with UVM’s cross-appeal in a few brief
paragraphs, without having to reinvent the wheel. For the same reasons the SCOV found UVM’s
decision on student’s in-state tuition status reasonable, the SCOV finds that
UVM’s interpretation of its own regulations was also reasonable.
Game over. Kid gets
the house, but will have to suck it up and pays the full tuition rate to finish
med school. Too bad he lost the chance
to take some of those electives—I hear underwater basket weaving is lovely this
time of year.
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