University of Missouri to settle legal flap over tuition

ST. LOUIS -- The University of Missouri system will set aside $10 million in a scholarship fund to settle a class-action lawsuit's claims that it illegally charged in-state tuition to undergraduate students, the four-campus system announced Wednesday.

A St. Louis County judge tentatively approved the deal resolving the lawsuit filed on behalf of three students who said Missouri law did not allow the university to charge tuition during their time in the university system.

The university system said roughly 104,000 current and former students, their spouses and children may qualify for scholarships. Eligible students attended any of the four campuses -- Columbia, St. Louis, Kansas City or Rolla -- as in-state undergraduates between January 1995 and August 2001 and were above the age of 16 and below the age of 22.

After 25 years, any remaining money will be put in the university's general scholarship fund.

Notification of affected students would not begin until after the deal is formally approved by St. Louis County Circuit Judge Kenneth Romines, who ruled against the university in December 2002.

"The University of Missouri is pleased that this matter is close to being resolved," Elson Floyd, the university system's president, said in a statement. "We look forward to a final determination of the court."

Bob Herman, the attorney behind the lawsuit, was in court Wednesday afternoon and not immediately available for comment, his office said.

The university system also tentatively has agreed to pay $1 million to Herman, plus an additional $17,000 to him for out-of-pocket expenses. The three plaintiffs also will share $27,000, with the university agreeing to pay other, unspecified administrative costs not to exceed $100,000.

Additional details, including the amount of each scholarship, have not yet been finalized.

The settlement appears to be an economical one for the university system, which some said may have had to face paying out as much as $400 million in refunds to at least 150,000 students, past and present.

Other possible remedies previously mentioned included vouchers students could use for tuition or be donated to the university for a tax credit.

The case stems from a 1998 class-action lawsuit accusing the university system of charging in-state students "fees" that amounted to tuition, violating an 1872 state law mandating free education for Missouri's homegrown at any of the four campuses.

The university has argued that its "fees" for in-state undergraduates were legal. But in December 2002, Romines ruled that the university violated state law between 1986 and 2001 -- when the 1872 statute was overturned -- by charging what amounted to tuition for students ages 17 to 21.

The 1872 law said all Missourians at least 16 years old "shall be admitted to all the privileges and advantages of the various classes of all the departments of the University of the State of Missouri without payment of tuition."

By many accounts, Missouri was among several Midwestern states that adopted tuition-free laws in the 1800s to give rural youths a better shot at higher education. Those states, excluding Missouri, scrapped those laws decades ago.

Herman has said undergraduates for decades were charged a nominal flat fee, no matter the number of credit hours taken. But in 1986 it began charging an "educational fee" by the credit hour -- a change Romines ultimately ruled a violation of the 1872 statute.

Over time, Herman said, that per-credit fee went from $20 to more than $150.

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On the Net:

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