ST. LOUIS -- For 20 years, Southern Illinois University's student numbers have languished, a problem that cost a top administrator his job in 2006. Much of the problem, the chancellor says, is that would-be students from Illinois go to other states on the promise of sweet tuition deals.

Now, the university is fighting back: Next fall, it will begin offering in-state tuition to first-year students from neighboring Missouri, Kentucky and Indiana.

Across the country, a battle has developed over prospective students seeking bargains in a bad economy. Some universities for years have tried to lure students across state lines with lower tuition, though such incentives are gaining popularity as the nation's financial meltdown has withered families' college savings and home equity to help pay soaring education costs.

"We're certainly seeing an acceleration of that" push by colleges to offer tuition cuts for its out-of-state scholars, said Bob Sevier, senior vice president of Iowa-based Stamats Inc., a consultant to colleges and universities about marketing, student recruitment, fundraising and strategic planning.

"It's something that should have been done a long time ago. This is not a gimmick. This is good, public policy," Sevier said.

And to Sam Goldman, SIU's chancellor, it's unavoidable.

"We're in probably the most competitive environment I've ever seen in higher education right now," said Goldman, a retired professor and the SIU system's former board chairman.

Other universities have similar designs on recruitment.

In North Dakota, for example, the state's Board of Higher Education recently has approved offering in-state tuition to out-of-state and international prospects. That's something Minot State University last month pushed to make big use of by hiring two new recruiters, hoping to lure more students from Canada's Alberta and British Columbia provinces and from Washington state.

Such efforts come when "the economic downturn is kind of churning the college market a little bit," prompting many colleges and universities to evaluate ways to remain viable, Paul Hassen, a spokesman for the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges.

"The higher education market changes constantly, and each institution has its own challenges and opportunities," he said. "Programs such as offering in-state rates to out-of-state students or some other way of packaging a pricing structure will occur. It's a matter of fiscal survivability."

Last month, an independent report on American higher education flunks all but one state -- California, which got a C -- when it comes to affordability. The biennial study by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, which evaluates how well higher education is serving the public, found that almost everywhere the average family's cost of education is up.

In Illinois, the average cost of attending a public four-year college has jumped from 19 percent of a family's income in 1999-2000 to 35 percent in 2007-2008.

At Southern Illinois, tuition has jumped from $2,865 in 1999 to $6,975 this year for in-state students; during the same span, nonresident tuition ballooned from $5,730 to $17,437. The school's student numbers shrank by 1,650 along the way to 20,673 now -- well below the 24,084 that went there in 1990.

That lagging enrollment came to a head in November 2006, when the university's president, former five-term congressman Glenn Poshard, ousted Walter Wendler as the Carbondale school's chancellor. "We're the only public university in the state losing students. We have to turn this around," Poshard said then.

In trying to do just that, Southern Illinois University's board late last year signed off on extending in-state tuition, to students from Missouri, Kentucky and Indiana. The current out-of-state rate is 2.5 times the price charged to Illinoisans.

Such moves apparently have worked elsewhere. According Hassen's group, Penn State from 2005 to 2008 has seen 47 percent more out-of-state students accepting offers from the school since it began offering a reduced tuition rate at 19 of its 20 campuses for the student's first two years.

Other university systems, while also trying to pad out-of-state recruiting, aren't feeling as generous.

University of California officials, for instance, reportedly are mulling expanding its out-of-state recruiting but not give those students in-state rates. Out-of-state students in that university system now pay $20,000 a year more than in-staters -- a premium that can be a handy revenue stream when the state's budget is tight.

In Carbondale, Goldman says it's far too soon to tell whether Southern's tuition push to lure more out-of-state students is making a difference, though he insists the feedback so far has been encouraging.

"We've had several open house activities here, and I've bumped into people from out of state here who have said, told me point blank, that because we reduced it they are coming here," he said. For each student, "the tangible difference is $10,000. It's that much. It's like we're giving them a scholarship; it's not, truly, but that's the equivalency."

At least 21 states, including Illinois, cut higher education spending last year, and some passed tuition increases well above the national average, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

While that may pressure many colleges and universities to raise their tuition even more this year, Southern Illinois hopes offering tuition cuts to out-of-staters adds revenue. Doing so would soften the belt-tightening Goldman suspects the school may have to take in because of the state's $2 billion-plus budget gap.

"Our enrollment has not been as strong as it should be. To remain competitive, we've got to rebuild it," he said. "But it's also to hold our own. With our state money dwindling, we only have other sources, and one of them is tuition."

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On the Net:

Southern Illinois University system, http://www.siu.edu

National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, https://www.nasulgc.org

National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, http://www.highereducation.org