The term coastie or coasty (more often heard and seen as the plural coasties) is a derogatory term used in Midwestern U.S. universities (especially the University of Wisconsin-Madison) to denote students who come from outside of the region, mainly from the East or West coast. Coasties are easily confused with FIBS, students from the north shore suburbs of Chicago. The term is thought to have been coined in the early to mid-1990s.
Although the most general use of the term denotes only the origin of these students, there are often implicit or explicit associations that use of the term can evoke. One is that coasties do not pay their own tuition because they come from socioeconomically privileged families. Other associations include living in private residence halls and membership in a fraternity or a sorority. An additional association is indulgence in fashion. These are very stereotypical categorizations of these students.