Jacking the price up for out-of-state students is no more than a populist, soak-the-rich ploy intended to give a state's taxpayers misplaced confidence that the higher ed system they are forced to support serves the interests of "the common folk." After all, only the rich can send their kids off to a distant college like the University of Utah.
Reality is that foreign and non-resident students don't cover the costs at state colleges and universities; the taxpayers do.
Socialist enterprises always want the public to think they're indispensable, vital to the public good, a benefit to everyone.
Who really benefits? Certainly not the taxpayers, nor the hopeful students and academics left out in the cold. This country's socialist colleges practice discrimination of the very worst sort, denying entrance on account of race or nationality, denying tenure to professors on account of their political leanings.
It's way past time that the Congress examine the federal government's role in higher education.
There's little chance this bill of Hatch's and Durban's will bring that about, though.