In-State Tuition by State: Graduate Eligibility and Rates (2026)
Verified 2026-09-27 · 2025–26 published rates · 51 jurisdictions · 2,550 state pairs
At graduate level, 43 of the 51 US jurisdictions belong to one of the four regional tuition compacts — WUE, MSEP, ACM or NEBHE Tuition Break — and 8 belong to none. The median residency gap is $16,300 a year, and almost every state requires 12 months of domicile before it will reclassify a student as a resident.
Master's and doctoral programs: resident and non-resident rates, the graduate-only exchange programs, and the residency reclassification route most graduate students can actually use.
Check your exact state pairHome state plus school state returns your route, the rule that governs it, and the dollar difference.Every state's graduate rates and compacts
| State | Resident | Non-resident | Gap | Compacts | Residency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $12,500 | $33,000 | $20,500 | ACM | 12 mo |
| Alaska | $11,500 | $24,600 | $13,100 | WUE | 12 mo |
| Arizona | $13,100 | $33,400 | $20,300 | WUE | 12 mo |
| Arkansas | $9,500 | $23,000 | $13,500 | ACM | 6 mo |
| California | $14,300 | $29,600 | $15,300 | WUE | 12 mo |
| Colorado | $15,700 | $33,300 | $17,600 | WUE | 12 mo |
| Connecticut | $18,600 | $40,200 | $21,600 | Tuition Break | 12 mo |
| Delaware | $20,300 | $37,000 | $16,700 | ACM | 12 mo |
| District of Columbia | $12,000 | $19,000 | $7,000 | No compact | 12 mo |
| Florida | $12,700 | $30,100 | $17,400 | ACM | 12 mo |
| Georgia | $12,100 | $31,000 | $18,900 | ACM | 12 mo |
| Hawaii | $16,300 | $36,000 | $19,700 | WUE | 12 mo |
| Idaho | $9,700 | $28,300 | $18,600 | WUE | 12 mo |
| Illinois | $18,700 | $34,300 | $15,600 | No compact | 12 mo |
| Indiana | $10,300 | $32,000 | $21,700 | MSEP | 12 mo |
| Iowa | $12,700 | $31,600 | $18,900 | No compact | 12 mo |
| Kansas | $12,000 | $26,600 | $14,600 | MSEP | 12 mo |
| Kentucky | $14,000 | $30,300 | $16,300 | ACM | 12 mo |
| Louisiana | $10,300 | $27,000 | $16,700 | ACM | 12 mo |
| Maine | $10,000 | $30,300 | $20,300 | Tuition Break | 12 mo |
| Maryland | $16,000 | $34,600 | $18,600 | ACM | 12 mo |
| Massachusetts | $17,300 | $34,000 | $16,700 | Tuition Break | 12 mo |
| Michigan | $27,000 | $54,000 | $27,000 | No compact | 12 mo |
| Minnesota | $20,000 | $30,900 | $10,900 | MSEP | 12 mo |
| Mississippi | $9,800 | $28,000 | $18,200 | ACM | 12 mo |
| Missouri | $11,300 | $26,600 | $15,300 | MSEP | 12 mo |
| Montana | $8,000 | $25,600 | $17,600 | WUE | 12 mo |
| Nebraska | $10,300 | $28,300 | $18,000 | MSEP | 12 mo |
| Nevada | $9,000 | $24,600 | $15,600 | WUE | 12 mo |
| New Hampshire | $17,000 | $30,000 | $13,000 | Tuition Break | 12 mo |
| New Jersey | $21,000 | $33,000 | $12,000 | No compact | 12 mo |
| New Mexico | $8,000 | $24,000 | $16,000 | WUE | 12 mo |
| New York | $13,000 | $25,000 | $12,000 | No compact | 12 mo |
| North Carolina | $12,000 | $30,000 | $18,000 | No compact | 12 mo |
| North Dakota | $12,700 | $19,000 | $6,300 | WUEMSEP | 12 mo |
| Ohio | $14,700 | $39,000 | $24,300 | MSEP | 12 mo |
| Oklahoma | $10,300 | $26,600 | $16,300 | ACM | 12 mo |
| Oregon | $18,000 | $30,000 | $12,000 | WUE | 12 mo |
| Pennsylvania | $24,000 | $40,000 | $16,000 | No compact | 12 mo |
| Rhode Island | $15,000 | $29,000 | $14,000 | Tuition Break | 12 mo |
| South Carolina | $15,000 | $33,000 | $18,000 | ACM | 12 mo |
| South Dakota | $10,300 | $13,000 | $2,700 | WUE | 12 mo |
| Tennessee | $14,000 | $33,000 | $19,000 | ACM | 12 mo |
| Texas | $12,000 | $23,000 | $11,000 | ACM | 12 mo |
| Utah | $9,300 | $30,000 | $20,700 | WUE | 12 mo |
| Vermont | $19,000 | $40,000 | $21,000 | Tuition Break | 12 mo |
| Virginia | $20,000 | $33,000 | $13,000 | ACM | 12 mo |
| Washington | $19,300 | $34,300 | $15,000 | WUE | 12 mo |
| West Virginia | $12,000 | $27,000 | $15,000 | ACM | 12 mo |
| Wisconsin | $12,400 | $26,000 | $13,600 | MSEP | 12 mo |
| Wyoming | $7,000 | $19,000 | $12,000 | WUE | 12 mo |
What the table shows
The residency gap is the number that decides most of these questions, and it varies by more than an order of magnitude. Michigan charges a non-resident $27,000 a year more than a resident. South Dakota charges $2,700. The median across all 51 jurisdictions is $16,300.
A large gap is not the same as a closed door. Several of the widest-gap states sit inside a regional compact, which is exactly why the compacts exist. The states worth watching are the ones with a wide gap and no compact membership at this level: District of Columbia, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania. For a student from outside, those states offer no route except institutional aid or a genuine move.
The residency column is the flattest part of the dataset, and that is itself the finding: twelve months is close to universal. Where states differ is in what counts as evidence of domicile and in whether a dependent student can ever qualify on their own — which is where most refused claims actually fail.
What changes at graduate level
Compact coverage is not uniform across levels, and this is the part students most often get wrong. Only the differences are listed here — the full mechanics of each program are on its own page.
- WUE15 of 15 members
- Western Regional Graduate Program applies at this level. WRGP is the graduate half of the same agreement, and it is more generous and much narrower: students admitted to an approved master's, graduate certificate or doctoral program pay the receiving institution's full resident rate, but only a specific published list of programs takes part.
- MSEP8 of 8 members
- Midwest Student Exchange Program applies at this level. Participating public institutions charge MSEP students no more than 150% of their in-state resident rate. Participating private institutions instead discount their own published tuition by at least 10%. Each institution chooses whether to take part and which programs it opens.
- ACM15 of 15 members
- Academic Common Market applies at this level. An approved ACM student pays the receiving institution's full in-state tuition rate. The gate is availability at home: the program must appear on SREB's approved inventory for your state, which in practice means your own state's public universities do not offer that specific degree. You are certified as ACM-eligible by your home state's ACM coordinator before the receiving institution will apply the rate.
- Tuition Break6 of 6 members
- New England Regional Student Program applies at this level. A Tuition Break student pays the receiving institution's in-state rate plus a premium capped at 75% of that rate — well below the published non-resident rate at every participating campus. Eligibility runs through an approved-program list: the degree must either be unavailable at your home state's public institutions, or be one the participating campus has opened regionally.
Browse by region
Midwest
South
Pairs with an actual route
Starting points from the largest states where something other than the non-resident rate applies. All 2,550 pairs are covered — each state page lists its own 50.
The same question at other levels
Asked and answered
›Which states have tuition reciprocity for graduate students?
Four regional agreements cover graduate study: WUE (15 states), MSEP (8 states), ACM (15 states), Tuition Break (6 states). They do not interoperate — a student in a WUE state gets nothing from ACM. 8 jurisdictions belong to none of them at this level.
›Does tuition reciprocity give you in-state tuition?
Usually not. Only the Academic Common Market and the graduate-level WRGP pay the receiving institution's full in-state rate, and both are gated on the specific degree. WUE and MSEP cap tuition at 150% of the resident rate, and NEBHE Tuition Break charges the resident rate plus a premium. None of them makes you a resident of the receiving state.
›How long do you have to live in a state to get in-state tuition?
Twelve months of domicile before the term begins is the standard across almost every state, and the durational clock is the easy part. States also presume that a student who arrived to enroll is present for educational purposes only, and rebutting that presumption — with a driver's license, vehicle and voter registration, employment and state tax filing — is what actually decides the claim.
›Which state has the biggest out-of-state tuition penalty at graduate level?
Michigan, where a non-resident pays $27,000 a year more than a resident ($54,000 against $27,000). The next largest gaps are Ohio ($24,300), Indiana ($21,700), Connecticut ($21,600).
›Where is out-of-state tuition closest to the in-state rate?
South Dakota ($2,700 a year), North Dakota ($6,300 a year), District of Columbia ($7,000 a year). A small gap usually reflects a deliberate recruitment policy rather than an agreement, which means it applies to every out-of-state student and needs no application at all.
How these figures were compiled
Compact membership and residency rules are checked against the operating commission (WICHE, MHEC, SREB, NEBHE) or the state's own higher-education authority, and every state page carries its source list. Tuition figures are compiled from each institution's published 2025–26 rate page, cover tuition and mandatory fees for a full-time student, and are rounded to the nearest $100. They exclude housing, books and course-specific differentials, and they are refreshed each June.
Each state is represented by one reference institution rather than a system average, because an average across campuses of very different cost produces a number that describes no real student's bill. The reference institution is named in every table. Full methodology.
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.
Not advice. In-State Check is independent of every college, compact and state agency named here. Residency classification and award decisions are made by the institution you apply to. Found an error? Send the page URL and the source that contradicts it to [email protected], and the page is corrected and re-dated. Full methodology.