they charged everyone the alaska rate

and out of state enrollment jumped 36 percent in a single year.

The University of Alaska Southeast ran a pilot this year called Alaska Unlocked. Every undergraduate course, charged at the in state tuition rate, no matter where the student actually lives.

Out of state tuition normally runs double to quadruple the resident rate. So that is not a small discount.

That is the whole experiment. Drop the price to what a local pays and see who shows up.

Newly enrolled out of state students went up 36 percent. More than 80 showed up this year against about 60 last year, from 28 different states.

Washington, California and Colorado sent the most.

Now the number that actually matters if you live here. Total enrollment came in about the same as last year, roughly 3,600 students across the three campuses. So this did not push Alaska kids out. It filled seats that were sitting empty.

And the chancellor points at what happens after graduation. A high percentage of their graduates are still living and working in Alaska a year after they finish.

The board votes in November on whether to run this across the entire University of Alaska system.