<p>I've been accepted and have decided to attend UCSD as an out of state student, however I was under the impression that I could become a resident of California after 366 days of living in the state, and therfore pay out of state tuition for only one year. However, I've stumbled across a couple of threads mentioning that you must prove complete financial independence to become a resident of California. I do have quite a lot of tuition to pay, and I will have to take out loans to do so. If my parents do not take out any loans, and pay nothing towards my college expenses, can I become a resident in one year? I do plan on working in California; however I do not have a car or any other expenses that are not part of my schooling expenses. By paying for my schooling completely on my own and working, do I demonstrate financial independence, allowing me to become a resident after one year?</p>
<p>No. According to the UCSD website:
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<p>[Criteria</a> to Establish Residence for Tuition Purposes](<a href=“http://students.ucsd.edu/finances/fees/residence/criteria.html]Criteria”>http://students.ucsd.edu/finances/fees/residence/criteria.html)</p>
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<p>Think this one through to it’s ultimate conclusion. If this were the case, there would be no students paying OOS tuition after 1 year. Essentially every state has made rules to guard against this attempt to avoid OOS tuition. If you’re not a resident of a state, you don’t pay taxes, so you don’t support the public college system, that is why you pay higher OOS tuition.</p>
<p>But the reason that students cannot obtain residency is because they have not shown financial independence and/or intent of living in california, not just to go to school there. By having a job and paying taxes to california, that should show my intent to live there past my schooling, and by paying for my own schooling completely I will be financially independent, no?</p>
<p>Chedva omitted perhaps the most critical part of the UCSD residency standard:</p>
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<p>The website goes on to quote a host of complicated rules designed to make it very difficult for an under-24 unmarried student to claim financial independence, e.g., you must not have been claimed as a dependent on your parents’ taxes for at least 2 tax years prior to the term in which you enroll (which effectively means if your parents are going to claim you as a dependent for 2011, the earliest you could meet this requirement would be the Fall of 2014); and you must be able to document that you fully supported yourself for two full years before the residency determination date, without the assistance of gifts or loans from your parents, other relatives, friends, or associates. And so on.</p>
<p>Realistically, not many people are going to be able to jump through all these hoops; you’re looking at probably 3 years of low-wage, hand-to-mouth existence with ZERO assistance from your parents before you could qualify as a CA resident, and most people are going to calculate it’s just not worth it. And as entomom says, that’s exactly what they intend.</p>
<p>Also note this bit:</p>
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<p>I don’t see how you propose to fully support yourself though 2 years (not one) of OOS tuition at an annual COA of $51,153, entirely out of your own earnings and loans. Since you’ll be classified as OOS, you shouldn’t expect any FA from UCSD; and to the extent they provide any need-based aid to OOS students, your parents’ income and assets would be used in calculating your EFC, even if they’re not actually contributing a dime—and they can’t contribute a dime if you’re going to try to be recognized as financially independent. So FA is not a promising source of self-support. Most college students earn maybe $2,000 from part-time employment during the school year, and maybe another $3-4,000 over the summer; though of course, your summer living expenses would need to come out of that (no help, remember!), so you’d be lucky to net maybe $2K. That means you’d need to borrow upwards of $45,000 per year—all without a co-signer. How likely is that?</p>
<p>Not going to happen.</p>
<p>USCD has given me almost $14,000 and I have another $5,550 from FAFSA. So that does take my cost down by almost $20,000 a year. And it is one year, well one year and one day. It says 366 days. And I plan to move to CA about 2-4 weeks before school starts so it will be longer than 366 days before I will start the following school year.</p>
<p>One more question, none of this would actually be changed by me going to a community college in CA to save money before transferring to a UC would it? I would still have to show complete financial independence, however this would be much easier with a dramatically lower tuition. Am I correct?</p>
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<p>So, what’s your plan for paying the other $30,000 that doesn’t involve any PLUS loans or other aid from your parents? (Setting aside the fact that it’s insane to even think about borrowing that much for one year of college.)</p>
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<p>Nope. Again, read the fine print. If your parents are claiming you as a dependent this year, you can’t even start the residency independence process for another two years.</p>
<p>Hard truth time: You cannot afford UCSD and it’s time to move on to your other options.</p>