I live in New York right now but my friend and I plan to move to Los Angeles after high school. We want to start off going to Santa Monica College but should we do a gap year, gain residency to save $? Or if we go to Santa Monica, pay out of state for one year, would we get to become residents so later on one of the UC’s will be for in-state? Someone help pleasee.
Will you and your friend be financially independent from your family in New York? Are you over 24?
Check out this link for residency requirements. http://ucop.edu/residency/establishing-residency.html
It is extremely difficult to impossible to establish residency for tuition purposes in California.
^ It was extremely difficult for my daughter (born in California/K-12 California/California driver’s license/California state tax filings/California bank accounts since she was 12) to re-establish residency (I was like, WHAT? re-establish!!) after spending a single post-college year out of state. UC in particular is not kind or flexible.
Yeah, but when I get to the UC I wouldve lived in Cali for 3 years already cause I plan to transfer after 2. Also I heard CC’s in Cali are very lenient for residencys
If you start paying OOS tuition, you will not become a resident over time. Almost all students who start OOS can expect to remain so.
This statement is directly from the residency link I posted:
::Undergraduates: If you’re a nonresident undergraduate student with nonresident parents, obtaining California residency for the purposes of tuition is extremely difficult (this includes transfer students from community colleges and other postsecondary institutions within California). Virtually all nonresident undergraduates with nonresident parents remain nonresidents for the duration of their undergraduate career at UC::
What the cc’s do for residency is different than what the UC’s and CSU’s do since the fees are disparately different.
1.) First flag for OOS residency status, by the UC’s and CSU’s, is the High School Transcript. If you immediately arrive to California and sign up for a CC within the first couple of years, you haven’t really had time to work a full time job, to pay a decent amount of California state taxes. With that HS transcript, they know that you have arrived for educational purposes and will charge you OOS fees no matter how long you have been in California. (Think about it, the UC’s charge $55K per year to OOS students. You need to work for years to match the taxes needed to generate that amount in tuition/ fees. California residents have been doing that for YEARS).
2.) Additionally, if your parents have not moved here with you, the UC’s suspect that they will continue to support you.
You have to have documented proof of rent payments, health insurance, w-2s, 1040’s and paid California state taxes that MATCH bills. This is very VERY difficult to prove. Because rents in California are extremely expensive, most students can’t pay their bills and rents without help from Mom/Dad. Finding a job that supports the rent payment with living expenses is very difficult. Transportation in Southern California is difficult AND rents are high, so you need a reliable car to traverse our freeways. Transportation in northern California is somewhat decent (San Fran) but the rents are extremely EXTREMELY high.
3.) If you are under 24, all bets are off. You cannot be listed on your parents Federal tax returns. Applying to FAFSA will prove that you are not financially independent.
Give the universities credit, they know all of the tricks.
Read the link:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/california-colleges/1802004-so-you-want-to-come-to-california-for-college.html#latest