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Graduate School

WRGP Program

Tuition Reduction for Out-of-State Graduate Students

The is an agreement among WICHE’s 16-member states and territories in the western United States, allowing WICHE region students to attend select out-of-state graduate programs and pay only 150% of resident tuition.

Most students save an average of more than $15,000 per year. For a WRGP cost of attendance (COA) breakdown, visit the Financial Aid WRGP page.

States & Territories that Qualify for WRGP Tuition Reduction

Alaska Arizona California Colorado
Hawai'i Idaho Montana Nevada
New Mexico North Dakota Oregon South Dakota
U.S. Pacific Territories Utah Washington Wyoming

老虎机攻略 Qualifying Graduate Programs

eligible to award WRGP.

Program not listed? If you want to add your program to WRGP, contact the Graduate Dean, who can provide instructions on how to apply.

Application Process

No application is required, but the number of students that can receive a WRGP tuition reduction is limited and will be awarded to newly admitted student(s) by their Department.

Qualifications

Students who qualify for WRGP:

  1. From a WICHE state/territory listed above
  2. Newly admitted to an eligible graduate program

WRGP Selection

If a student meets the qualifications above and the eligible Department would like to award WRGP to a student, they must:

  • Send an email to grad.school@umontana.edu with the student’s information (name, 790#, program & admit term).
  • Email the student to notify them of award selection and have them send a copy of proof of residency in their WICHE state (documentation from WICHE state such as driver’s license or tax return) to grad.school@umontana.edu.

*If selected for WRGP tuition reduction, students cannot work toward gaining Montana residency for tuition purposes throughout the entirety of their program, unless they elect to forfeit WRGP status.

  • Common indicators that a student is working toward MT residency includes changing over their driver's license, vehicle registration, and/or voter registration.

Note: a student is only eligible for one tuition reduction benefit at a time therefore if a student is awarded WRGP and is given a TA/RA contract, the Graduate School will remove WRGP. The Department must notify the Graduate School after the contract expires if they would like WRGP reinstated.

Attention Program Directors: Open Application for WRGP

The Graduate School is opening up a broad window for programs to apply for WRGP status. In past years, we have run a deadline-driven cycle, based on the desired timeline for programs to use the tuition benefit as part of the advertisement and recruitment. While we still urge programs to work out a plan and apply for WRGP status well in advance of their normal admissions cycle, we will accept applications on a rolling basis from this point forward.

The general conditions for seeking this tuition benefit have not change. The memo below outlines the policy we have adopted for adding programs to WRGP, as well as the process for applying.

We are generally using the WRGP tuition level to add students to programs where there is unmet capacity, and to achieve specific program goals without significant loss of tuition revenue. Your application should thus speak directly to those criteria: will you expand your student base with unfunded students? Will you use this device to recruit for diversity of some kind?

Programs should know that the Graduate School will place caps on the number of students who can be admitted under the program, and no program has been authorized for more than 4 students in any application cycle, or 10 in the program at any given time. We have, however, also granted exceptions during specific admissions cycles when some desired good can be met with recruitment of a specific student: we can raise the cap 1-2 students, for example, in a given cycle, if it will allow a program to meet some other identified need in the cohort.

We are not at this time admitting any online only students in the WRGP category.

If you have further questions, please contact Graduate School (grad.school@umontana.edu), or for data contact Kelly Speer (kelly.speer@umontana.edu).

  • Select programs can apply for participation in the Western Region Graduate Program (WRGP), which allows programs to recruit non-resident students from WICHE states to attend at a reduced tuition level: Beginning in AY 2021-22, they will pay 150% of resident tuition.

  • The WICHE guidelines for participation in the (WRGP) describe it as a “tuition reciprocity agreement that helps departments build robust programs by diversifying their student enrollment and fill seats in distinct programs that might otherwise go unfilled.” In fall 2017, WICHE announced that “graduate programs will no longer be required to demonstrate distinctiveness in order to participate" (10-11-2017); WICHE officially announced its new process in late July of 2018. Last year, 老虎机攻略 added two new programs to the WRGP. A complete list of programs can be seen on the .

    In May, 2019, WICHE updated the policy to allow institutions to charge 150% of resident tuition to cover more of the cost of educating graduate students. WICHE requires campuses to charge one, consistent WICHE rate across the institution (except in cases where programs have special tuition). Following the WICHE policy change, we have decided to set that rate at 150%, which will replace the previous 100% of in-state tuition for both new and existing WRGP programs in 2021-2022. This lag will give existing WRGP programs an opportunity to graduate those students recruited under the 100% level and to recruit students at the new level.

    The WICHE directive gives latitude to each institution to determine which programs can be added to WRGP. The Graduate School has conducted analysis of our unfunded, out-of-state student population, who comprise about 10% of the graduate student population. We have determined that the revenue loss of converting all students from WICHE states to in-state tuition would be between $1.7 million (at 12 credits) and $1.34 million (at 9 credits), an unsustainable loss.

    We are, however, eager to work with programs who want to pursue the original WRGP goals of: 1) diversifying student enrollment; and 2) filling seats that might otherwise go unfilled. In expanding WRGP, we are going to prioritize programs that can add tuition revenue to the University by recruiting new, unfunded students and growing their programs with existing resources. The process below lays out the criteria by which we will evaluate whether programs are eligible. If programs are successful in growing their enrolled students, the Graduate School will look for ways to return revenue to the program level to fund future recruitment and student support.

    Programs previously approved as “distinctive” under old WRGP guidelines will not be subject to these application requirements, but will need to provide annual reports on their WRGP recruitment process. They will also be subject to the new tuition level of 150%, beginning in AY 2021-22.

  • The Graduate School will work with the Graduate Council to determine: 1) which programs will be eligible for WRGP funding; and 2) how many students in each program can be admitted under the guidelines (hard caps will be placed on each program).

    To apply, programs must provide the following data with a short statement of goals:

    1. A 5-year report on the number of applications and the number of students enrolled in the program;

    2. A 5-year report on unfunded, out-of-state students (“O” status in Banner) from WICHE states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawai’I, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota), U.S. Pacific Territories, Utah, Washington, Wyoming);

    3. The recruitment goals the program hopes to achieve in the next 2-3 admissions cycles: # of applicants, # of unfunded attendees from WICHE states, change in diversity of the applicant pool, with specific targets for each goal; (e.g., “We aim to increase our pool of applicants from 23 to 40, and add 3-4 unfunded students from WICHE states.”).

    4. The recruitment strategy the program will use to pursue these goals;

    5. The space available in their program to absorb new, unfunded students without new faculty resources, with a specific number of students they could recruit into the program (e.g.,: “We anticipate that we could recruit 4-6 new students under without adding faculty resources to accommodate the growth of the program.”)

    6. A specific number for the upper limit of WRGP students (Ex: “We could only admit a maximum of 8 students without needing new faculty resources”).

    The Graduate School will help departments collect relevant data for 1 and 2. The Graduate School will review these applications and use application, funding, and enrollment data to see if these programs are suitable candidates. Based on the anticipated revenue gain or loss, the Graduate School will set a hard cap on the number of WRGP students to be admitted to any program that is approved.

    Programs admitted into WRGP will provide an annual report (deadline: July 1st) on their results, which will be reviewed annually by the Graduate School. After 3 years, a determination will be made whether the program should be renewed or removed based on how each department

    1. Email to program directors: October 1st

    2. Deadline to request data from Grad School: November 1st

    3. Deadline for applications: December 1st

    4. Present decisions to Grad Council: December

    5. Announcement to programs: December 15th

    6. Update WICHE-WRGP website, 老虎机攻略 Grad School Website