30 public colleges with the most out-of-state freshmen

In its April 2016 Lincoln Project study, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences reported that states reduced financial support to top public research universities by close to 30 percent. One way for public schools to subsidize this loss of funding is to admit a higher percentage of out-of-state students, who pay higher tuition prices than in-state students.

With this in mind, StartClass found the 30 public colleges with the lowest percentage of in-state freshmen students using data from the 2014-15 academic year provided by the National Center for Education Statistics. For this list, StartClass focused on large universities, so only schools with at least 15,000 undergraduate students were included.

Universities are ranked according to their percentages of in-state students. StartClass also lists the percentage of out-of-state students, international students and students of unknown residency. Seven schools on the list had 50 percent or fewer of its freshmen class made up of in-state students, including three schools in the south: the University of Alabama, University of Mississippi and University of South Carolina-Columbia. In the event of ties, the school with the higher undergraduate enrollment was ranked higher on the list.

If you are viewing this story in the WRAL News app, click here.