•December 11, 2019•

Eastern Illinois University now offers in-state tuition to prospective undergraduate students from any state in the U.S. who have a 3.0 or higher grade point average.
Previously, EIU only offered in-state tuition to students from Illinois and “collar states”—the six states that directly border Illinois – Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, and Wisconsin.
That offer has now been expanded to include any student in America’s 50 states through EIU’s new Out-of-State Distinguished Rate Program.
“Universities throughout Illinois and across the country continue to compete for the best and brightest students available,” said Josh Norman, EIU’s associate vice president for Enrollment Management. “EIU has the lowest cost of attendance among downstate public universities in Illinois. This new program provides greater access to the incredible value an EIU education represents, while also delivering on our brand promises of accessibility and affordability to those beyond our traditional service region.”
Historically, most of Eastern’s students have resided in Illinois. However, in the past decade, students attending EIU from outside the state have quadrupled.
Norman indicated that an increasingly smaller, more globalized world has opened opportunities for prospective students beyond Illinois. For many of those students, EIU is simply “a good fit”—either through EIU’s specific academic programs, athletics, its various student life opportunities, or the individual attention EIU is so well-known for.
Eastern Illinois University has been long celebrated in Illinois as one of the state’s most affordable institutions of higher education. University officials are committed to ensuring EIU’s affordability remains an alluring factor in attracting prospective students from across Illinois. With the new Out-of-State Distinguished Rate Program, this commitment to affordability is enhanced for students outside Illinois as well. The new rate allows all out-of-state students with a minimum 3.0 GPA to pay the same tuition and fees as students from Illinois, as well as the same room, board and fee rates as native Illinois students admitted to the university.
EIU leaders also anticipate the university’s new Out-of-State Distinguished Rate Program will further support EIU’s recent upward enrollment trends. Those trends include a 3.1 percent enrollment increase from summer 2018 to summer 2019 and a more-than-threefold upsurge in first-time freshmen in the same time frame. Earlier still, Eastern’s fall 2017 to fall 2018 first-time freshman class grew by 24.5 percent, which was later supplemented by an additional seven percent enrollment jump in spring 2019.
For more information about EIU Admissions, visit https://www.eiu.edu/admissions/. For more information about EIU, or to learn more about its growing assortment of programs and services, visit the university’s website at www.eiu.edu, or call EIU’s public information office at (217) 581-7400.

•December 11, 2019•

The annual Charleston Elks #623 National Hoop Shoot is Dec. 14 at the Mattoon Middle School.
The National contest in its 48th year is a free throw competition for ages 8-13. Three divisions each for boys and girls will shoot 25 free throws for best score.
Winners advance to the district level in January at Robinson.
Registration begins at 9:00 a.m. with competition starting at 9:45. For further information contact Rod Franklin at 345-9668.
The event is free and any expenses past the local level will be covered by The Elks National Foundation.