Hi,
We have lived for 11 years in MD. My daughter has been attending a public university in MD for 2 years 1/2. We, her parents, just moved to CA for job purposes. Will our daughter lose her in state tuition status?
You have to check. Usually there is some time period for extension (12 months, or until there is a break). Some states allow instate status as long as you graduated from a high school in that state. You have to ask.
UMD is pretty tough when it comes to determinng in state status.
I would suggest not changing her “permanent addrss” to one in another state.
You should check with the school on policy.
Like the other posters said, find out your college’s policy. For instance, New York is extremely liberal, anyone who graduates from a NY high school (even if they’ve never lived in New York) is good for four years of instate tuition. Other states have very strict rules.
@sybbie719 in NY, wouldn’t the student need to graduate from a NY PUBLIC HS?
How would a student graduate from a NY public HS if they were never residents of NY?
Does not matter what we say here. As above, check with her university. I would suspect she can keep her residency there since she is an adult and graduated from an instate HS et al. By now I presume she is at the point in her life that her college town has become more her home than where she graduated from HS. She can visit you over the summer but can keep her Maryland residency.
Huge difference in being an adult- it doesn’t matter what the parents do or where they go even if they pay the bills. Big problem for high school students who need to move OOS and lose instate status when applying to schools but don’t have time to become residents in the new state before college.
Sure, the adult student can become (or remain) a resident of the high school graduation state, can vote, get a driver’s license, pay taxes. She can even buy a house and make it more permanent. Many schools still define residency as where the parents of an under 24 year old live for instate tuition and financial aid purposes.
For the University of Maryland, the following may be relevant:
http://www.registrar.umd.edu/Residency/resreclassfaq.html
http://www.umd.edu/catalog/index.cfm/show/content.section/c/48/s/587
http://www.registrar.umd.edu/Residency/resreclassprocedures.html
to Thumper1, If in another state but went to a private high school in NY you could go to SUNY for instate tuition. I guess it is possible to live in another state and graduate from a NY public high school (like if you pay tuition) also. There’s a 5 year time limit. https://www.suny.edu/smarttrack/residency/
Most of what ucbalumnus posted is completely irrelevant. But the Maryland policy (bizarrely, in my experience) is especially harsh on its face for students whose parents move while the student is enrolled. There is no automatic grandfathering of such students, something that most states do.
As a practical matter, residency is determined when a student first enrolls, and there is no automatic redetermination of residency every semester. If the university never finds out the parents have moved, it is unlikely that residency will be redetermined. All of the redetermination petition procedures – unsurprisingly – contemplate a student classified as out-of-state petitioning for in-state status.
Unfortunately, the rules state that a student must inform the university within 15 days of any event that may alter in-state status. I bet that rule is honored more in the breach than in the observance when it comes to parents of enrolled students moving to another state. As a technical matter, once the parents are no longer Maryland residents, there will eventually be a presumption that a dependent child is also not a Maryland resident. That presumption can be rebutted, but as I said there is no automatic exception.
In any event, under the rules, even without the exercise of any discretion, residency status is good for any semester the last registration day of which is within one year of the date the parents abandoned their Maryland residency. Depending on the exact date of the move, that could mean that the OP’s daughter is OK automatically through her 7th semester, and certainly through her 6th. After that, and assuming she plays by the rules rather than not informing the university, the student would have to prove that she did not enter Maryland for educational purposes and intends permanent residency. I can’t imagine that university officials wouldn’t agree with her in the circumstances described, assuming she has done things like voted in Maryland, rented an apartment there year-round, filed tax returns and paid taxes on employment income, gotten a Maryland driver’s license, etc.
If she is worried about this, it would be a very good idea to stay in Maryland and work there this coming summer, and not to spend it with her parents elsewhere. If she is still living in university housing, she should think about moving off-campus as soon as possible.
It looks to me like the student an apply for exemption from nonresident status?
(Link within a link that ucbalumnus posted)
http://www.registrar.umd.edu/petitions-forms/USM_NRTF.pdf
I know the FAFSA now uses prior prior year taxes. But if this student is still in college in 2018 fall, and applies for aid, the taxes will reflect residency in another state.
The exemption mom2twogirls posted is only available to people who got AA degrees (or 60 credits) at a Maryland community college before transferring to a state university. It does not apply to students who go directly from high school to UMD. If you look at the background, it exists mainly because the UMD definition of “residents” categorically excludes undocumented aliens. The exemption came as part of a Maryland “DREAM” Act to create a path for a bachelor’s degree for undocumented kids who have grown up and been educated in Maryland, and whose parents have continuously been paying Maryland taxes.
That’s true. If that’s likely – based on the OP, it looks like normal graduation would be spring 2018 – it increases the incentive to deal with the issue straightforwardly rather than putting your head in the sand and hoping for the best.
That college student is no longer a child. What if the parents no longer declare her on their income taxes? They could still pay her bills but that should satisfy the state regarding dependency status. Several years ago it was financially, and perfectly legal, for us to no longer declare our son as a dependent on our tax forms even though we footed the bills (he had investment income from things we had put in his name years before).
If the student needs to complete a FAFSA, the parents will need to link THEIR tax return to the IRS Data Retrieval Tool. Even IF the student isn’t listed as a dependent on their taxes…their place of residence will be on there. If it’s not MD, that will raise a red flag in terms of residency…because residency is based on the parent domicile.
But if the family moved in 2016, the 2018-2019 FAFSA is the one that will have the taxes linked with the new address.
@wis75 : It doesn’t matter for any state residency requirement I have ever read whether parents treat a student as a dependent on their tax returns. Unless the student can prove the parents are contributing nothing substantial to his or her support, including tuition, the student will be considered dependent on the parents. Private universities that award need-based financial aid generally will not even consider a claim that a student is independent if the student is 24 or younger. (I think that’s the age.)
What about North Carolina?