A tiny college on the northern border of Wyoming wants Utah’s students.
And to entice them away, it’s advertising a special offer: Utahns can enroll at Sheridan College at in-state tuition rates, paying thousands less for their degrees.
“State lines and high costs shouldn’t limit your educational opportunities,” the school says.
Some might call it good marketing. Utah’s higher education leaders see it as student poaching, the latest advance in a competition over enrollment that’s playing out nationwide.
“I think we’re going to see more and more of this,” said Geoff Landward, the commissioner over the Utah System of Higher Education. “I think we’ll see more out-of-state institutions offering steep discounts to try to get our students.”
The rivalry comes as most schools across the country are experiencing an enrollment dive. The college-age population in the United States is declining, meaning there are fewer students who would traditionally go on to higher education after high school. And that means less money for schools that rely heavily on tuition dollars to operate.
While it’s already arrived elsewhere, Utah hasn’t yet experienced that demographic cliff. It’s expected to come later in the state, starting around 2033, and it’s uniquely positioned to be less dramatic here than other places. But that leaves Utah a prime poaching target for other states, while college enrollment is still growing here.
Sheridan College, which largely offers two-year degrees, is calling its offer the Bighorn Mountain Advantage — named for the Wyoming mountains the school sits beside. It’s technically available for any out-of-state students, but the institution is particularly pushing it for prospects in neighboring Utah.
“The Bighorn Advantage program aims to make an excellent education more affordable to students from Utah,” the school said in its announcement.
(Sheridan College via Wikimedia Commons) The Sheridan College campus in Sheridan, Wyo., in October 2022.
The price tag makes it cheaper than most in-state public schools. Currently, the residency tuition rate at Sheridan College is $4,800 a year on average. Before, students living in the states bordering Wyoming would attend at a rate of $6,400 annually; and those further away about $11,000.
Now, going to Sheridan College is about the same price as it costs a Utah student to attend either of the state’s community colleges: Salt Lake Community College and Snow College, which both sit above $4,000 a year.
Walter Tribley, president of Sheridan College, said in a news release that the strategy behind the move is specifically to boost enrollment through out-of-state numbers. He also hopes students will graduate and stay in the area to work, buoying the economy in turn.
“We are seeing a net exodus, or at least a strong exodus, of our college-educated people out of the state,” Tribley said.
Spokespersons for the college did not respond to requests from The Salt Lake Tribune for further comment on the program and its intent or Utah leaders’ concerns.
But Landward said about Utah schools in response: “This is why we need to be innovative and strategic about what we offer … to ensure a Utah student has an easy choice of where to attend college, and that’s right here at home.”
The offer from Wyoming
Like Wyoming’s biggest school, the University of Wyoming, Sheridan College has seen enrollment declines in recent years. The student population hasn’t rebounded from a significant 15% drop during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to reporting from community newspaper The Sheridan Press.
And in 2023, the student population at the school dipped another 6%, to its lowest point in years.
“We’re a brilliant, sparkling college here at Sheridan College and we have wonderful programs, talented faculty and staff. … But we have to work hard to maintain our fiscal solvency,” Tribley said at the time to Wyoming Public Media.
To bounce back, Tribley proposed in fall 2023 an ambitious goal of increasing the full-time equivalent counts for students by 300. That would bring in $3.2 million to the college through tuition, he said, and more than cover their “fiscal cliff.”
At that point, the college had roughly 1,833 full-time equivalents — a combination of full-time and part-time student counts, with the latter making up the larger share (for about 3,400 students total). By this fall, that had jumped to 2,053 full-time equivalents, according to the school’s data, falling short of the goal at least in the first year.
That at least partly explains the push for Utah students to fill the remaining gap.
It’s happening in other areas of the country, too. Inside Higher Ed reported that the University of Illinois Springfield is similarly offering in-state tuition rates for students coming there from its western neighbors Missouri and Iowa.
The publication said it’s “the latest example of a trend that’s picking up speed in the regions hit hardest by demographic shifts.” And it’s stoking tension and competition as schools fight for the same shrinking pool of students and their limited tuition dollars, which typically make up about 20% of a school’s revenues.
It’s leading higher education campuses to operate more like Monopoly boards.
Years earlier, Sheridan’s targeted approach wouldn’t have been allowed. It was first set in motion in 2019 by a lawsuit Mr. Monopoly could’ve gotten behind.
The National Association for College Admission Counseling, which is responsible for governing how colleges compete with one another, previously issued complaints and investigated colleges for using any kind of poaching tactic to recruit students — either first-years or transfers.
But the Department of Justice filed an antitrust case over the association’s codes. They settled in 2020. And now the association must permit colleges to poach students from other institutions, including with flashy financial aid offers and scholarships or other amenities.
In the final judgment, the association agreed to “remedying the anticompetitive effects” of its rules. It was a major ruling from an athletics standpoint, opening up more opportunities for student athletes to transfer. But now it has massive implications under the demographics changes.
Federal lawyers had originally argued — and won — by saying that competition among colleges “benefits students because it lowers the cost of attendance and increases the incentive that the colleges have to provide high quality or innovative services.”
In other words: Schools should be allowed to openly compete to get the best students by offering the best incentives to attend.
Utah’s counter
In this largely Republican state, Utah leaders are some of the biggest champions of an open marketplace where the top offer wins. Still, the setup with colleges doesn’t sit well here.
Landward said he can understand Wyoming wanting to have a more educated workforce and trying to attract students to help build that. But it’s ultimately taxpayers there who will pay to subsidize bringing Utah students in. And he questions the return.
“What exactly is the overarching intent here? Is it growth for growth’s sake?” he said.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah System of Higher Education Commissioner Geoff Landward speaks during a Utah Board of Higher Education meeting in Salt Lake City on Friday, March 28, 2025.
Right now, Landward said Utah’s schools aren’t thinking about employing a similar strategy to lure out-of-state students and increase enrollment ahead of the impending cliff, outside of the natural appeal some colleges here have for non-Utah students, such as the University of Utah’s research acclaim.
The state has long offered a small incentive for students in neighboring Western states, such as Nevada and Arizona to reduce out-of-state prices a bit in a “good neighbor program,” Landward said. It’s particularly meant to help students who are in higher education deserts, if a Utah school is closer to where they live, for instance. It’s not really intended to be a major incentive or attraction. And other Western states offer the same under the compact.
But Landward knows the expected drop in student populations is on the minds of Utah lawmakers — and other schools stealing Utah students has the potential to worsen the expected impact.
This year already it led the Utah Legislature to preemptively cut $60.5 million budgets for the state’s eight public colleges and universities, at least in part, as preparation.
“I’ll be honest, I can see a problem,” House Speaker Mike Schultz has previously said. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to [see] there’s this cliff coming, and we’ve got to get ahead of it.”
The direction has been for Utah’s schools to reduce spending “administrative bloat.” They can also earn their share of the reduction back if they show the Legislature they’re reinvesting it in high-demand majors that will graduate more students and set them up for a higher-paying career.
But it’s led to a lot of negative attention on universities, which have had to cut staff and centers as a result.
Alan L. Smith, who is serving at the interim president of Utah State University, said during a March meeting with faculty that he has seen the competition from others states on the horizon.
Even with the $12.6 million reduction there, he said, “I see us well-positioned” to deal with that.
Demographers with the Kem C. Gardner Institute anticipate Utah’s enrollment declines, once they start, will hold for 12 years, with student populations not growing again until about 2045.
Utah’s approach for addressing that — in addition to conserving funds now — is to keep its students and attract more from its own backyard. And it sees its public schools and universities as a collective all working toward that, instead of in competition with each other. (Landward, with a laugh, said he would kindly prompt Wyoming to look at the same tactics.)
A major part of the effort here is targeting nontraditional student populations — such as older students or those who might not have been considering post-secondary education.
Currently, about 49% of Utah high school graduates go onto a college or university in their first-year after high school. By three years, 64% do, according to data from the Utah System of Higher Education. That leaves a lot of room for potential new students.
The state currently has 207,000 students enrolled in traditional public higher education institutions here. And most of those, too — about 80% — are Utah students.
About 9% of the state’s students who go on to a college or university go out of state, for either a private or public school. And roughly 11% stay in state for a private school.
If it is about marketplace competition, Landward said, Utah schools must work to be the best option for students in the state, and he believes the numbers show they already are.
That comes, he said, from keeping tuition costs affordable, providing degrees that have value and being innovative in offering unique programs or opportunities to learn, such as internships and fellowships; and it must be intentional.
“We are obligated to deliver on that value better than anyone outside of our state can,” he said. “And if we do that, I’m not worried about Sheridan or whoever offering these things.”
Similarly, Smith said his goal at USU in northern Utah is to provide a high-quality experience at a good price. In the competition, he said, “one of the nice advantages we have is we’re inexpensive for what we offer” with tuition, room and board.
Wyoming and others states may want Utah’s students. But Utah, he feels, wants them more.
(Utah State University) Pictured is Alan L. Smith, who is serving as the interim president of Utah State University.
