The Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) has approved the expansion of the 250-R program – which was initially for undergraduate students only – to include graduate students beginning this fall.
This program offers reduced out-of-state tuition to graduate students who have a permanent address inside a county within a 250-mile radius of the University of Memphis main campus but do not currently qualify for the border county classification or other in-state residency classification.
This opportunity represents a nearly 44 percent reduction in out-of-state tuition for eligible out-of-state graduate students who live outside border counties (DeSoto, Marshall, Tate and Tunica in Mississippi and Crittenden in Arkansas).
With about 1,000 doctoral and 3,000 master’s students, the UoM is the largest graduate school in the Mid-South. “Now that a graduate degree has become a necessity for success in the modern workplace, this sends a clear message to the best and brightest in the whole region that we are their destination of choice for securing a quality graduate education,” said Dr. Jasbir Dhaliwal, interim dean of the Graduate School. “With our 116 diverse graduate programs, we are well positioned to serve all their needs.”
According to Dhaliwal, the Tennessee Council of Graduate Schools has found that the state produces only about 7,900 Tennesseans annually to fill current workforce demand for more than 10,000 graduate degree holders. Reduced tuition costs and job prospects should attract strong regional candidates to the UofM to help reverse workforce shortages in our metropolitan area.
The plan’s economic benefits to the Memphis region could be significant. Historically, 54 percent of UofM out-of-state graduates remain in the region after graduation. Every $1 million investment in graduate education provides an additional $893,000 in business revenue, an additional $1.2 million in personal income, 22 jobs and about $77,000 in state and local taxes.
