#nodebt

                 “SO. Dr. Stevens. You excited to be with me on ortho today?” He looks up from the chart he’s been perusing to flash her a knowing smirk. “And before you play innocent, let me tell you I’ve already heard every... ‘ortho-jock, it’s-only-carpentry’ joke in the book. So save them for somebody else. I’m gonna show you that bones are COOL.” He winces internally. Okay, so maybe that last part’s overkill. Definitely don’t use that one on the next resident.

Yurt Life and Permaculture In High Sierra

So you’ve found the school of your dreams. It’s got the major you want, the campus is gorgeous, and you’ve just received your acceptance letter! But unfortunately, it’s a public college in a different state than the one you live in. If you don’t want to pay 3x more tuition than you would for an in-state school, here’s how to get in-state tuition rates.

First of all, residency refers to where your university decides you are from. For instance, if your parents or legal guardians live in Iowa, and you’ve lived in Iowa with them your whole life, you are classified as a resident of Iowa. You can only pay in-state tuition if your college decides you are a resident of the state in which your college is located OR if your state has reciprocity with the other state (check out my “State Schools” post for an explanation of reciprocity.) 

A common point of confusion about residency is that moving to the state you’re going to school in does not actually make you a resident. Renting an apartment in the state doesn’t either. Most schools will use your parent’s/guardian’s address, more specifically the state in which your parents are filing their taxes, and state that the only reason you’re in their state is for school. You can’t prove you won’t leave the state immediately after finishing college, and so they don’t want to give you discounted prices.

Now, the easiest way to get in-state tuition in a state you don’t live in is to marry someone who does live in that state. If you’re from Georgia, and trying to go to the University of Nebraska, signing a marriage license with Phil from Omaha is going to establish you as a resident and get you in-state tuition. Why? Your spouse takes precedence over your parents, and so the University can assume that if you married (in this case) a Nebraska resident, you have a greater intent of staying in the state after graduation. HOWEVER. I am not recommending this. If your school finds out you married someone for the sole purpose of lower tuition, this is fraud and it is likely going to end with you paying the full price of tuition. Not to mention, divorce is pretty messy. 

So, moving right along, the option that I recommend for people who really want to go out-of-state but want to pay in-state tuition would be to GAIN residency in another state, generally by living and working there for some minimum amount of time. Most universities will set a minimum hour-per-week working requirement (generally around 30 hours), and require you to work for around a year. You’ll also be required to get a license in your new state, register to vote there, and file your taxes in that state. 

Gaining residency somewhere new does have a few drawbacks. For one, you are going to have to delay beginning school. Working 30 hours a week and going to school-full time is next to impossible, and a lot of schools have restrictions on how many credit hours you can take while going through the residency process. You also MUST file your own taxes, which means your parents cannot claim you as a dependent. That’s a super important conversation to have with them before starting this whole process.