The University of Tennessee System has added a fifth campus, the first addition to the network in more than 50 years.
The Knoxville News Sentinel reports that Martin Methodist College in Pulaski, Tenn., will join the system as University of Tennessee Southern.
The merger is intended to bring affordable higher education to southern Middle Tennessee. The school is about 75 miles southwest of Nashville, near the Alabama border.
As part of the University of Tennessee System, Martin Methodist students wlll pay about 60% less in tuition and fees.
Students also will have access to UT Promise, a scholarship program that covers tuition and fees for students with a household income of less than $50,000 per year.
An additional University of Tennessee campus also creates an option for prospective students in southern Middle Tennessee, which does not have a public university in the region.
UT Southern will be the smallest of the system's five campuses.
There are nearly 700 full-time students enrolled at Martin Methodist.
Martin Methodist, which was a private religious college, is the first new campus to join the University of Tennessee System since UT Chattanooga joined in 1969. Other Tennessee campuses have a similar origin as religiously affiliated schools: UT Chattanooga was originally a Methodist school and UT Martin was originally a Baptist school.
