<p>I have a few questions regarding my eligibility for claiming an instate residency for Texas. </p>
<p>1) Will I be considered a resident of Texas if I co-sign an apartment (in Texas) in my name? I will move into the apartment right before college starts. After 12 months (first year of college), will I be able to claim Texas residency and receive instate tuition?</p>
<p>2) One of my family members has lived in Texas, as a resident, for about 3 years now. If I list her as my dependent, can I receive instate tuition immediately?</p>
<p>1) Will I be considered a resident of Texas if I co-sign an apartment (in Texas) in my name? I will move into the apartment right before college starts. After 12 months (first year of college), will I be able to claim Texas residency and receive instate tuition?</p>
<p>NO…you cannot establish residency in this way WHILE you are concurrently attending college.</p>
<p>2) One of my family members has lived in Texas, as a resident, for about 3 years now. If I list her as my dependent, can I receive instate tuition immediately?</p>
<p>NO…you can’t just “list someone as a dependent”. That person needs to BE your dependent and you would need to also demonstrate that you have earned the income to SUPPORT both your dependent AND yourself, and this would include your college costs, with earned income.</p>
<p>My understanding is that YOU can purchase LAND in the state of Texas and pay taxes on that land…and that will help you become a state resident. BUT I believe you cannot do this while attending college. </p>
<p>For undergrad students…99.9% of the time, the state of residency is that of your parents. Think of it this way…if ALL it took was signing a lease on an apartment, there would be very very few upperclassmen who payed out of state tuition. Think of that…it’s just not the way it works.</p>
<p>You and your parents would need to establish a DOMICILE in Texas (in other words, you would need to live there), and pay taxes to the state of Texas while working and living in Texas prior to attending college.</p>
<p>I think you KNOW you are not a resident of Texas for tuition purposes and you also know this isn’t a likely thing to have happen.</p>
<p>You can not make her your dependent. To claim someone that is not your child as a dependent you have to meet several requirements. One is the support requirement. You have to earn enough to show you can support her and additionally she can not make enough to show that she provides her own support (she can not earn more than $3650).</p>
<p>NO…you can’t…not if you are an undergrad with PARENTS living in another state. AND not while you are attending college. You are a resident of the state in which your PARENTS reside.</p>
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<p>You can NOT do this. Your relative cannot declare you as a dependent (which is what would be happening if SHE were supporting you). YOU cannot declare the relative as YOUR dependent…you can’t do that. Swimcatsmom has pointed out the reasons.</p>
<p>You have some options…you COULD move to Texas and work full time and delay your entry to college until you have established residency according to their rules (see post #2). That would work. You cannot establish IN STATE residency WHILE you are enrolled in college as an OOS student. It’s NOT allowed in the TX regulations.</p>
<p>NOW you do need to keep on thing in mind. You don’t mention financial aid…but becoming an instate resident is ONE issue. Even with instate residency, you will STILL be a dependent for FINANCIAL AID purposes. The full time income you earn WILL be used to compute any need based aid for the subsequent year…and you very well might not be entitled to any with full time income sufficient to support yourself for the previous year. AND you will still need to report parent income/assets.</p>
<p>We recently visited the University of Arkansas. A student there who is from Texas told me that there are many students from Texas that go there because in order for you to be given in-state tuition in Texas, you have to graduate in the top 10% of your high school class even though you are a Texas resident. Is this true?</p>
<p>8% for UT and 10% for A&M and any others although the others go down further to 15% as the school’s status goes down compared to UT and A&M. Texas gives in state to even illegal aliens as long as they have gone to high school in texas. Arkansas, LSU and Oklahoma lure texas residents with in state tuition offers because they are large schools that need more students from out of state, especially ahtletes.</p>
<p>I know at least one person claiming residency in Baylor medical school for tuition by buying a condo in Houston. I cant tell you how long you need to have owned property before claiming residency.</p>
<p>Texas highly values people purchasing property in the state and being employed/paying taxes in the state, and the state rewards this with residency. Compared to other states, it is relatively easy to get in state residence in Texas, but it takes planning and documentation. I have not done this myself, but I recommend you post your questions on the University of Texas section of the forum. One of the parents there was recently successful with this and another has a kid who will be applying for residence this summer, the summer between his first and second year. If you follow the Texas rules, you can become a resident, even if you are not self supporting and even if you initially moved to Texas to go to college, as long as your parents don’t claim you as a dependent and you own property, work (campus jobs don’t count) and live in Texas year round (don’t go home for the summer) - and as long as you show you intend to move to Texas, to “establish domicile” there. The rules make it sound like you need to either own property or get a job but the parents who have posted on this suggest you are most likely to be successful with your residency request if you do both.</p>
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<p>The most efficient way to become a Texas resident is to meet and marry a Texas resident at freshman orientation; you will be in-state for tuition purposes by the start of sophomore year. :D</p>
<p>Heard Texas was fairly lenient about claiming residency especially if you buy land there. </p>
<p>But how hard would it be to get into UT-Austin?
Say I am able to land a job, most likely minimum wage or maybe with Americorps(looks like they survived…for now). And I buy property. Could I buy like half an acre in some random part of the state? And land that isn’t valuable farmland or oil-rich, etc…? aka kind of worthless ha and not going to break the bank, but good enough for me. Then I’d rent an apartment or something or I could live with my aunt in El Paso maybe. But anyways, back to UT. </p>
<p>I’ve always thought UT was an awesome school, but with the top 10% (8% for UT) and high OOS/litle aid, I did not bother to apply. </p>
<p>But say (now this is quite the pipe dream and it would take quite the salesmanship to convince my parents to let me move 1500 miles to Texas and live on my own) I find a job that I am able to live on(barely, hello ramen noodles haha), buy a cheap piece of land and pay taxes on it. Parents don’t claim me on my taxes, I get a TX drivers license, aka kinda going the whole nine yards. </p>
<p>So I would be able to apply to UT as an in-state resident? But I would not fall under the top 8% rule because I did not graduate from a TX high school, right? So would it be just as hard for me to get in as an in-state student or not? </p>
<p>Might not be worth the risk, do all of that work and then get denied by UT-Austin. Maybe a TX CC for freshman year…hmmmmmmm. </p>
<p>Well, thoughts? Probably have some huge holes in my plan, please to point them out. </p>