As of 2021, Weber State University’s student body is made up of more than 10% non-resident students, more commonly known as out-of-state students. WSU provides scholarships and other resources to help these students succeed.

WSU currently has 712 out-of-state students enrolled for the coming 2023-24 school year. Though that number is down 6% from the previous year, many of the applicants from out-of-state applied within the past few weeks and WSU expects more to come.

“[Students] are realizing the affordability aspect of Weber State versus another school, so that’s when we are seeing a lot of these students from out of state applying,” Ryan Copeland, associate director of admissions, said. “We’re on track to match if not exceed [the percentage from last year].”

Because out-of-state students are not eligible for in-state tuition, WSU is part of and has developed programs to help full-time out-of-state students get affordable tuition. WSU offers scholarships based on academics, athletics, location and familial ties to these students through these programs.

Though Utah residents are able to fit within five categories on the WSU academic scholarship index, while non-residents only have three categories, the categories for non-resident students are larger to compensate for more students.

The academic scholarships available to non-residents include the Mt. Ogden Scholarship, which gives students $9,000 per school year; the Golden Spike Scholarship, which gives students $8,000 per school year; and the Waterfall Canyon Scholarship, which gives students $7,500 per school year.

Each of these scholarships is decided by the scholarship index, which combines information from a student’s GPA and test scores.

WSU is also a part of the Western Undergraduate Exchange program which provides scholarships for students who move from one of the participating states to another for school.

Participating WUE states include Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. Because most out-of-state students at WSU belong to these regions, WUE helps many of these students.

WSU also has an Alumni Legacy Nonresident Scholarship, which allows non-resident children or grandchildren of WSU to pay in-state tuition as long as they maintain a GPA of 2.5 or above and are full-time students. This lowers tuition by $9,500 for students who qualify.

WSU provides many other resources to out-of-state students, including specialized regional recruiters and admissions advisors for every part of the United States.

Even if a student does not qualify for any of the WSU scholarships available to out-of-state students, Utah is one of the easiest states in which to gain residency. In Utah, the residency is constituted by maintaining “a place of abode in Utah and [spending] 183 or more days of the taxable year in Utah,” according to Utah.gov.