How difficult is it to establish residency in Idaho while attending the university of Idaho and living on campus?
Pretty much impossible according to this: http://www.uidaho.edu/registrar/registration/residency
If this was possible, why wouldn’t every student do it after 1 year? What would be the point in charging OOS tuition if this was the case?
Usually it’s impossible to establish residency like that, at least as an undergraduate. But every state, and sometimes every public university within that state, has different rules and standards. You have to check.
OK – I decided to help a bit. Here’s the Idaho regulation, which applies to all public colleges in Idaho: http://adminrules.idaho.gov/rules/current/08/0104.pdf. Basically, you can’t establish residency while you are attending college on other than a very part-time basis, and living on campus would probably kill any chance you had. If you don’t have strong previous ties to Idaho (e.g., you graduated from high school there, but then your parents moved, or you were in the Army for a while), you need to live, work, vote, be licensed, etc., in Idaho, supporting yourself, and not for an educational purpose, for 12 continuous months before the start of the semester for which you claim resident status.
Here’s the Idaho statue that governs in-state residency for tuition purposes:
http://www.legislature.idaho.gov/idstat/Title33/T33CH37SECT33-3717B.htm
Basically, it says you cannot obtain in-state resident status while attending college full time.
To be consider eligible for state residency, you must be self-supporting (not receive more than 50% of your support from your parents) and must have established a bona fide permanent residence in Idaho at least 12 months prior to matriculation.
Once upon a time, it was possible pretty much everywhere. The “point” of charging OOS tuition was to make a few extra bucks on a student, just as it is now, but the Powers That Be were satisfied by just a few extra bucks, not shovelfuls.
Personally, I am a little disgusted by people’s obsession with in-state vs. out-of-state status. State legislatures treat it as if it were some sort of moral distinction, but it’s not. There’s a general sense that state residents “deserve” a discount because they have been contributing as taxpayers to subsidization of the state public colleges. But (a) many, many people who qualify as state residents have not contributed a penny, net, to state coffers, (b) everybody who is a resident of any state has been contributing to the public education system somewhere, to the extent they do pay positive taxes net of the benefits they extract, (c) the system makes life difficult for people whose lives take them back and forth across state lines, which is an increasing number of people, and, most importantly (d) why would any state want to discourage young, smart, future university graduates from settling there? You don’t think the meteoric rise of California was helped a bit – more than a bit – by people coming to college at Berkeley or UCLA and staying?
From the standpoint of California in the 80s, say, I can understand people saying, “We pay high taxes and fund a great university system. Why should someone from, say, Mississippi where taxes are low and state funding of education completely inadequate be allowed to come here at the resident tuition rate?” But there are two answers to that. First, there isn’t anything like the disparity there once was among public systems. Second, it’s not just anyone from Mississippi California has to let into its university system, it’s the cream of the crop that UC admissions staff are selecting by hand.
Today, plenty of states that are desperate for young, educated people. Attracting out-of-state students to the local public university is a great way to get them. It’s not airtight (not even slavery or indentured servitude was airtight), but it’s pretty good. If I were King of any number of those states, I would be gutting residency rules right and left to lure out of state students to come establish residency in my state, in hopes they would stay. And, you know what?, lots of states are doing that, sometimes through merit scholarship programs like Alabama’s or Oklahoma’s, but in some cases through more liberal residency rules, too.
I’ve known a couple people who really wanted to get in-state tuition rates to attend a specific school. They moved to the states where the schools they wanted to attend were located. Got full-time jobs or a couple part-time jobs–enough to support themselves. (One worked at Starbucks, the other in a lab, among other things–just random low-paying jobs) Got apartments, drivers licenses, registered to vote. Kept working/living there for a year. Then they applied to school. So is it worth taking a year off school and working to establish residency to get in-state tuition?