In a series about western states, I tried to think about something wrong with Wyoming and could not. The closest I can come up with is, if Idaho becomes two states, splitting Wyoming between Colorado and Montana. The problem is that Montana is already unwieldy as it is and adding more land, a lot if you want to try to fit Casper in there, would aggravate that problem. Plus, Wyoming doesn’t particular need anyone because their mineral wealth makes things pretty good for Wyoming. The state even got the university situation right. Whereas North Dakota and South Dakota split their top schools into flagship and land-grant, Wyoming has only one real state university that serves as both. As such, unlike the Dakotas and Montana, they’re settled with Division I-A representation while states larger than them aren’t. So… good for Wyoming.
July 23, 2012
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Wyoming Is Doing Nothing Wrong
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Having attended a community college in Wyoming for two years, I can say that Wyoming did NOT get the university situation right. Because there’s only one four-year institution in the state, the university acts as a bully. It routinely refuses to accept credits from Wyoming community college system. They make students retake courses that they took at the community college level—forcing students to spend more time at UW and extending the time it takes to get a degree.
This forces Wyoming students to make the difficult choice between going to a more expensive out-of-state school or prolonging their education at UW. Thankfully I still qualified as a Utah resident and was able to escape to a better school w/o having to pay out-of-state tuition.
There was talk of working with other states to let Wyoming residents get in-state tuition at other universities but I don’t know whatever become of that.
Comment by Abel Keogh — July 24, 2012 @ 9:33 am
Well, they got the university situation right insofar as Wyoming can probably only have one top-tier school. From the sounds of it, though, the college itself needs a good smack upside the head.
There was talk of working with other states to let Wyoming residents get in-state tuition at other universities but I don’t know whatever become of that.
That’s actually not uncommon in some cases. For instance, if you’re a student of a program that’s not offer in-state. Some of the Dakota schools give a discount to eligible neighboring states. It’s not in-state, but it’s somewhat reasonable.
A long time back, Mom got in-state tuition to another state school because her home state didn’t have suitable accommodations for female college students.
Comment by trumwill — July 24, 2012 @ 9:04 pm