<p>No it’s not possible for you to take on loans from a private lender. Your parents could, if they had sufficient salaries, but I doubt they would be considered reliable if they’re in Bangladesh. In addition, it would not be a solution because you would saddle your parents with unmanageable debt. </p>
<p>@swimscat: actually, because many other countries have varying levels and languages and curricula, American high schools are strongly encouraged to let young people coming from abroad enroll in high school so that they learn American values, history, language, etc. even if they’re slightly older than traditional high school age. The legal limit in Florida is 20 (or 19 and 7 months, I forget), at which point the student must leave the school. In other states they must not be older than 18 and 6 (or 9) months when they enroll.</p>
<p>@dip22222: how old are you? What type of “high school certificate” do you have? Is any of your parents an actual resident of a specific state (ie, lives there/pays taxes there)? when do you expect your green card?</p>
<p>You have several options but the one option you wanted is not possible.
Option 1: one of your parents moves back to FL and works there and/or gets a drivers’ license there, pays taxes there. You work too. After 12 months you become a resident for tuition purposes.
Option 2: if your relatives live in a state, live with them for a year and enroll in high school there. Depending on the State, graduating high school can mean in-state tuition (ie., Texas, CA) or not.
2b: do this in Florida, get the necessary grades and ACT, apply for Bright Futures and attend college in FL. Pay OOS fees.
Option 3: wait until you have your green card, choose a private universities and colleges where “in state vs. out of state” does not matter, and try to get need-based aid (as a permanent resident, you’ll be treated like an American citizen wrt financial aid, both need-based and merit). ONLY public universities charge OOS fees which are not covered by any financial aid.</p>
<p>Every public school we have been involved with in the US requires a transcript from their previous school, and proof of their parents’ current residence in the school district (understandable as it is tax dollars that are paying for the schools). How would this work with the OP’s parents not residing in the US currently.</p>
<p>“I’m not sure the STUDENT coming here himself will establish instate residency. He is 18, maybe 19 years old. For college residency purposes, the address where his FAMILY resides is the one that matters.”</p>
<p>I don’t agree. 24 is the age set for FAFSA to be independent, but adults all over the USA are residents of their states at age 18. They can buy property, get jobs, pay taxes, vote, contract, buy cars, register cars, get a driver’s license without a parent signing, and yes, go to college. It is a presumption that your residency is that of your parents, but you can overcome the presumption. What you can’t do is file the FAFSA if you are under 24 without the parents’ input or a classification of independent. An 18 year old can move to California, work for 2 years, and start school as a resident. Still is dependent for FAFSA.</p>
<p>Utah has some schools that encourage the OOS to establish residency and pay instate. It’s a state by state decision.</p>
<p>Also, I don’t know of any high school in the US that will let an 18 or 19 year old just walk up and register. My nephew turned 18 during Oct of his senior year in high school. His mother moved to another state and he was estranged from his father (lived in same town). The high school did not like it at all that he was living independently and wouldn’t let him stay until an adult agreed to be responsible for him. He’d been in this school district since K. They would not have let some kid just sign up for high school. Someone from out of the country would have to complete all the requirements for a diploma from a Florida high school - US government, Econ, World history, Alg I and Geometry (including passing the End of Course exams), the health course, etc etc. For Bright Futures, you don’t have to speak 2 languages, you have to have 2 years of a foreign language CLASS.</p>
<p>Actually, that is not true. Once you have a high school diploma from any where in the world, you are considered a high school graduate and you are not allowed to attend an american high school or get a GED (now called TASC)</p>
<p>“And my stepmom is a citizen and my dad is a PR of Florida.”</p>
<p>Is anyone living in Florida now? If your father is living there with your step-mother it may be possible for you to be considered an in-state resident. Check the websites of the public universities and community colleges in Florida to see if you qualify.</p>
<p>My understanding was that OP has family in the US since his/her father is an American. Op presumably has grandparents, uncles, cousins, etc. (This would explainy why OP is sure to get a green card - in all likelihood s/he should have been a citizen due to his father being a citizen, except the father forgot to declare him/her to the Embassy before age 18 and the problems started…)
You’re right: an 18 year old cannot just walk into a high school and register.
The family member walks to the high school near where they live and registers the kid. There are restrictions based on age but that’s about it. The principal tries to estimate where to place the student based on what the relative or parent can explain, and if the student’s there, there may be a short interview to measure his/her English proficiency. Once the student has been enrolled and his/her records have arrived, there’s an attempt at better placement, perhaps a move up or down one grade level (which may or may not be related to actual age).</p>
<p>@sybie: that’s not quite true. Since you’re in NYC, you must know of THOUSANDS of kids who enrolled in high schools (including the International HS network) with secondary certificates of various kinds, or none at all, from their country – or who are over 18 when they enroll. </p>
<p>You need to investigate the rules about in-state residence in the parts of the country that you might like to live. For example, in Maryland, if you can demonstrate that you are paying more than half of your own support, you can qualify for in-county tuition and fees at some of the community colleges. I don’t know if any of the community colleges in Florida have that policy. If they do, and you have a place to stay in Florida when you first arrive, then move there, get a job, and when you have been there for the minimum time required, start taking classes.</p>
<p>^^ do as happymomomof1 said: go see the EducationUSA office in Dhaka first thing tomorrow!</p>
<p>In addition, why did you want to go to Florida (and think you’d be a resident) if you have no family currently in the US?
(or do you mean your parents are in Bangladesh but your cousins, etc, are somewhere in the US?)</p>
<p>Absolutely. They must also bring transcripts from their previous schools. We also have books to translate credits and translators to translate foreign documents. </p>
<p>If the student has received a a high diploma or equivalent in their home country, they can not be registered in a NYS high school (if they are registered and we find out later that they have completed high school, we must immediately discharge them). Discharge code 25 Already Received a High School Diploma Outside DOE at Time of Enrollment </p>
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<p>However, they can attend programs through the city’s Office of adult and continuing education</p>
<p>Twoinanddone…yes there are many 18year olds who are self supporting. BUT this student isn’t even doing that…or proposing doing that. He is hoping to come to the U.S. and enroll in a college AND then get instate tuition the second year. MOST colleges do NOT allow students to establish residency CONCURRENT with attending college. Residency is established BEFORE college enrollment.</p>
<p>The student has two issues…instate status…which is possible, but may be difficult to prove as the student currently does NOT live in any state.</p>
<p>Second issue is financial aid. While the student MIGHT gain instate residency status, he will not be considered independent for financial aid purposes. His family income and assets will be required on the financial aid application forms.</p>
<p>The schools he is mentioning are public universities. They do NOT guarantee to meet full need. He can expect a $5500 loan (once he is FAFSA eligible) and anything else would be up to the college (unless he is Pell eligible…max $5600).</p>
<p>And to the OP…you mention colleges in Pennsylvania and Virginia, but then you mention that you will be a resident of FLORIDA. If you become a resident of FLORIDA, you would get instate status for FLORIDA only…not other states as well. And NO, the second year, you would NOT get instate status in PA or VA if your state of residence is FLORIDA.</p>
<p>and OP would not get in-state residence for tuition purpose in Florida either.
I suggest applying to private colleges. There are lots of them that still accept applications and as a permanent resident OP would qualify for financial aid. Whether that would be sufficient is another matter.
Outside of private colleges, the simplest situation would be for OP to move to where any relatives live, or if none live in the US, to whatever state would accept that a year of work can entitle a person to community college at in-county or in-state rates, work for 12 months, then register at a community college (or a branch campus, whichever system makes a 2+2 easiest in the state s/he picked.)</p>
<p>@sybie:
out of curiosity, how do you evaluate a bac pro/BEP from France, IGCSE’s from Bangladesh, Attestat ob Sredem Obshchem Obrazovanii from Russia? Are the students considered to have completed high school? </p>
<p>Twoinanddone…yes there are many 18year olds who are self supporting. BUT this student isn’t even doing that…</p>
<p>Yes, he said he is going to support himself and pay his own taxes. That would make him independent for residency purposes, just not for FAFSA. However, I do think he may be confusing many concepts. I don’t know how he’s being granted a green card, if it is through a relative’s sponsorship of if he’s been awarded this on his own. So much will depend on the answers to all these questions - visa status, support, state of residence, source of support. I think he’s very confused on how the state university systems work and how they protect the ‘in-state’ designation. He says his father is a resident of Florida, but how? Does he pay real estate taxes (no income tax here), does he own a car registered here, does he have some kind of federal aid or state aid administered here? It’s hard to prove residency if you don’t LIVe here. To register my kids for school when we moved here, I had to show a lease and utility application, job offer, sign an intention to change my car registration and license, etc.</p>
<p>The best would be to go to a state where he wants to go to school, live for a year and make sure to sign up for every single thing he can that will show he’s a resident of that state - ID or driver’s license, library card, clubs, get a job, pay taxes, etc. then apply for college.</p>
<p>MYOS1634, yes there are those who are lying and in high school even though they should not be. There is fraud in any and every system, but the fact of the matter is that unless the forms are filled out fraudently, unless there is diversion or no way to check the lie, students with a high school equiv type of degree are not permitted to register for high school. But, there are those who slip through the system, especially if the person/parent answers the key questions with lies. Not going to suggest the OP or ANYONE looking for advice on these board to do that. </p>
<p>I was in the similar situation as the OP, and was not entitled to state residency ANYWHERE because my father did not keep up with paying state taxes and returns when he left the US. Yet he considered him a resident of sate since he did keep ID from that state and it happened to be the last place he lived in the US. </p>
<p>I agree that it depends upon the school as to what it takes to become a state resident. Here in my area, it’s a piece of cake. You just say you’ve lived here for a year and have a local address. But that’s for the state schools that are not that picky about admissions and not for degree seeking programs. The schools get a bit trickier when you are in one of those about deciding who is and isn’t a resident. If the OP looks at some schools that do not have many OOSers in them, there is a better chance of easier getting in state designation and tution rates. Also some schools simply do not enforce or investigate the rules that they have in place. I doubt, however, that is the case when it comes to the state flagships. </p>
<p>For arguments sake…suppose that this student was deemed independent for financial aid purposes…just suppose. IF he has bee supporting himself, he will have needed to earn enough money to pay his full tuition, room, board, and all other expenses for the prior year (if his dad is paying his tuition, I can’t imagine he would get a dependency override). The income he earned would need to be enough to show that he independently paid for those things…and would need to appear on his FAFSA.</p>
<p>PLUS VA Tech, Penn State (the schools the OP mentioned) and any public university on Florida (where he claims he will be a resident) would guarantee him ONE form of aid for sophomore year…a $6500 Direct Loan. With the income to support himself that prior year, I doubt he would be Pell eligible.</p>
<p>And to the OP…like I mentioned upstream…while you are a resident of FLORIDA, you will NOT be granted instate status at VA Tech or Penn State. You will not be able to establish residency in VA or FL just by attending college there for a year. </p>
<p>Be aware that schools often have different residency rules even when in the same state. Even for different purposes within the same school, they can have different standards. They also enforce the rules they have differently. </p>
<p>I hope OP has understood that he can’t magically become an -instate resident for tuition purpose at a public university in Florida unless his father (American citizen) pays taxes there and is registered to vote there, let alone in any random state of his choosing.</p>
<p>For clarification purposes, when I said OP should enroll in high school I assumed he meant he had taken and passed IGCSE’s. I’m not sure how it’s seen in NYC (I asked Sybie - I do know that in NYC a student may say “I graduated high school” yet if what the system considers high school is not equivalent to how much schooling they had, they are not considered HS graduates and they are not eligible to enroll in community college until they’ve graduated an American high school, although IGCSE’s are tricky which why I asked). IGCSE, the boards many Bangladeshi students present, is seen as sufficient for university entrance in the US yet corresponds to a 10th grade certificate so that attending high school after that wouldn’t be lying. Just because an educational system considers someone to have graduated high school doesn’t mean it’s what is considered high school in the US. An easy example beside the British-patterned system would be the Quebec system, where students graduate high school in the 11th grade - AFAIK, they are “high school graduates” in their country yet are not considered high school graduates in the US and if their parents move to Michigan or Maine they are eligible for at least one more year of high school depending on age and previous curriculum as evaluated by the school district (ie., whether they reached 4th secondary level or 5th secondary level in relevant academic subjects.) The point is moot since OP is 20 anyway.</p>
<p>thumper: I agree that the student cannot be independent. It’s impossible to earn OOS tuition at a job, even for a Florida public, let alone for Penn State. Right now Op needs to revisit his options.</p>
<p>There are community colleges that are very inexpensive even on an OOS fee structure, that also have housing lists so that students can go live there. Not only that, they may be very generous in granting in state status for part time students. An intrepid student can find housing there, take a few courses, find a job, and then work towards getting instate status and seeing which schools in that state would accept that for tuition purposes. It would take time,research, but, yes, one can do that. </p>
<p>My friend’s son did just that. He did end up getting instate status at age 22 for a flagship, taking that route, and is currently going there. It can be done. But it took a lot of work. He is not international but wanted to go to an OOS public to be with a girlfriend. Parents firmly entrenched in another state. </p>