Border-county waiver
An institution's authority to waive non-resident tuition for students living in named counties across a nearby state line.
Border waivers are the most commonly missed discount in US tuition policy, because they are granted at institution level and are almost never listed centrally. Several states authorize them by statute; others leave them entirely to the campus.
They are usually restricted to a specific list of counties rather than the whole neighboring state, and the list is set by the receiving institution or by the state's coordinating board.
Unlike a compact, a waiver is frequently one-directional: the receiving state grants it and gets nothing in return, so it does not imply any benefit for a student traveling the other way.
See also
Asked and answered
›What does "border-county waiver" mean for in-state tuition?
An institution's authority to waive non-resident tuition for students living in named counties across a nearby state line.
›Why does border-county waiver matter?
They are usually restricted to a specific list of counties rather than the whole neighboring state, and the list is set by the receiving institution or by the state's coordinating board.
How this page was made
Compiled and checked by Billy Reiner, editor of In-State Check. Last verified 2026-09-27.
- Compiled from published rate pages
- Every dollar figure on this site is tuition and mandatory fees for one full-time year, read from the named reference institution’s own 2025–26 rate page and rounded to the nearest $100. Housing, books, travel and course-specific differentials are not included in them.
- Checked against the administering body
- Compact membership is checked against the commission that runs each program (WICHE, MHEC, SREB and NEBHE), and every residency rule against the issuing state authority or statute. Nothing here is taken from another comparison site.
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