Five sneaky ways to get instate tuition for an out of state kid

Parents Forum
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<p>I think here is the kernal of the different POV. Virginia residents know that OOS applicants actually have a slight advantage in getting into UVA, William and Mary, etc., because those institutions want the extra money they will bring. It seems like every year there’s a front page article in the Washington Post about some poor sap who was rejected at those two schools, AND at James Madison and he was also his school’s valedictorian! Competition can make you crazy. </p>

<p>Better to get mad at your state legislators who are underfunding the schools and/or are not legislating minimum percentages of state residents, like North Carolina does. I know, I know, easier said than done. Maybe it’s all that Helen Dragas’ fault.</p>

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<p>Ok, I will address each issue as they have been asked,</p>

<p>First, although the delegate scholarship was awarded her, I believe that it was due to the fact that we, as parents, were residents of Maryland. We never changed out residency. Even if this was not that important, I made it abundantly clear that she needed to go out of state since the major wasn’t offered in Maryland. She got the money anyway as long as WE maintained our residency</p>

<p>Sevmom, who said my daughter didn’t get merit aid from Cincinnati? I didn’t bring it up due to the “jealous” reaction that I received here. She did get some merit aid. All of this was in addition to the merit aid that she received.</p>

<p>As for my daughter being independent, we set up a college savings account in her name for years. UC investigated her bank account for the prior 3-6 months prior to her enrollment, and she was interviewed by someone whose job is to determine residency issues . They were satisfied that I didn’t just do it right before she entered college. Just as a reminder, the 12 month requirements cited above by some people wasn’t in effect when we applied for residency. However, from an independence perspective, she would have met it.</p>

<p>As for being independent, most state schools oddly don’t seem to care how the kid becomes independent as long as they are independent. Thus, if they make money from jobs, from royalties or from a trust fund, it really doesn’t seem to matter. All they seem to want is independence and true attempt to establish residency, which she did.</p>

<p>Calmom, I was NOT in anyway boasting about what I accomplished. In fact, I am sorry that I even mentioned it. I was simply responding to those people who thought the strategies mentioned in the AOL article were “impossible or wrong.” It was NOT an attempt to boast or brag in any way.Read over my prior posts here. I have made that clear.</p>

<p>Also, I am NOT that rich. I am very careful with money and am very clever at finding favorable loopholes and techniques within the law. Essentially, that is what tax lawyers do!</p>

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I guess they changed the rules. Maybe on your account :slight_smile:

That seems logical to me, at least to the extent that anything is logical about residency requirements for tuition purposes.</p>

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<p>greenwitch,OOS kids do NOT have an admissions advantage getting into UVa. There are about 20,000 OOS applicants per year and about 7000 + instate. The OOS kids have a lower acceptance rate than instate kids do. Many, many OOS kids are full pay though since UVa gives essentially no merit aid. UVa, William and Mary and VT seem very appealing to many OOS families and most are willing to pay the going rate if their child is accepted. Many well qualified instate kids do get locked out though since the percentages of OOS kids are fairly high (30% plus).That is the gripe in Virginia. I don’t see how this relates to a Maryland resident not wanting to pay OOS rates to Ohio.</p>

<p>taxguy, I do wish all the best to your daughter. Seems like the whole "independent " thing doesn’t make sense (for a financially comfortable kid) and maybe schools should look more closely at that .</p>

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<p>"Virginia residents know that OOS applicants actually have a slight advantage in getting into UVA, William and Mary, etc., because those institutions want the extra money they will bring. "</p>

<p>Completely and totally UNTRUE. Absolutely untrue. Look at the acceptance rates. The OOS kids at both of those schools tend to be stellar or bring something to the table that makes the desireable other than the extra tuition. The state has regs limiting the % of OOSers. Also, OOSers who are legacies are treated as instaters for admissions purposes though their headcount and tuition costs will be that of OOSer. I have a nephew who will be going to one of these schools as a legacy, and that status which elevated him to instate for consideration tipped him into the acceptance range. </p>

<p>I envy VIrginians for the excellent in state schools there, but the problem with that is the same as what Georgians are getting with top students staying instate due to the HOPE program: it has become VERY difficult to gain acceptance to the better state schools. UVA and WM, though are LESS difficult to gain acceptance for instaters, are still tough gos. I have two nieces who could not get accepted to what they deemed their best choices in state and so they both chose to go out of state to colleges that they felt were “better” and offered the atmosphere, amenities, choice of courses than the VA instate choices they had. For them, if they could not get accepted to UVA, WM, VT, or JMU, then it’s time to look at UDel, UWV or other schools rather than going to the other state schools in VA. </p>

<p>Taxguy, I would not even discuss the situation. What you did was well and good. Also many schools will not enforce or pursue OOS kids. They simply do not choose to do so, and don’t care. However, if anyone finds such a school, do understand that those things can flip any time, and your student could become the subject of an investigation or come up as delinquent if someone chooses to focus attention in that area, so it’s well and good and wonderful if you can get state status, but do not count on it continuing, if you are getting this without all of the facts on the table and the school specifically giving you a waiver rather a wink and a wave.</p>

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<p>And your daughter explained to Maryland on her renewal application each year that she was financially independent and had established residency in Ohio?</p>

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<p>taxguy, Since your daughter got merit then in addition to instate rates, the university and Ohio were very generous to your family. Most OOS kids would be hoping to get merit to bring their cost down to closer to instate rates. But since your daughter got both merit and instate rates from a school and state that you had no prior connection to, hopefully you and she will pay it forward. The merit I get. The Ohio instate rates and “independent” stuff I still don’t get. I really doubt that a truly independent student would have such an involved parent (with money) in the process. But as I said before, not pursuing these kinds of loopholes is probably one of the reasons why I’m not rich!</p>

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<p>There’s this:</p>

<p><a href=“http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-02-24/news/36782630_1_virginia-students-higher-education-college-students[/url]”>http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-02-24/news/36782630_1_virginia-students-higher-education-college-students&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>From 4 years ago! Do you think that valedictorian with the 4+ GPA would have been rejected if he’d been bringing in 3x the money from out of state? I think not. The admissions statistics are not that simple. </p>

<p>and more recently:</p>

<p>[College</a> Inc. - More seats at U-Va. could ease admission woes](<a href=“http://voices.washingtonpost.com/college-inc/2011/01/more_seats_at_u-va_could_ease.html]College”>http://voices.washingtonpost.com/college-inc/2011/01/more_seats_at_u-va_could_ease.html)</p>

<p>Hmmmmm, things seem to have gotten even worse (but will get a bit better with more seats). Is it any wonder that parents go crazy and this might, just might, effect their thinking about other in-state, out-of-state issues?</p>

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<p>That article and ones like it have been floating around forever. You just never fully know why a given kid was rejected.Many outraged Virginia parents take their frustration to their legislators every year. Nothing new. UVa , Wm & Mary and Virginia Tech have always kept a healthy proportion of OOS kids and have been able to maintain a regional and national profile probably partly because of that. There are just more kids applying and wanting to stay instate and the competiton is very tough. I feel badly for instate kids that don’t get into their first choice instate school but luckily we have good options in our state. As cptofthehouse said, some kids do end up OOS or private if they don’t get into an instate school they want.</p>

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<p>calmom asks, "And your daughter explained to Maryland on her renewal application each year that she was financially independent and had established residency in Ohio? "</p>

<p>Response: This may surprise you,but there were no renewal applications. She got the award for four years with no requirement that a renewal application be submitted each year UNLESS our financial circumstances changed and we wanted to apply for more aid. Although I know this will draw some sneers, I was seriously thinking at the time about repositioning both our and my daughter’s assets into insurance products since all funds in these products are not counted as assets for FASFA purposes. However, I probably wrongly decided not to do this.</p>

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<p>Your daughter’s financial circumstance most certainly changed- she became emancipated and a resident of Ohio. Your financial circumstances most definitely changed- you lost a dependent who became independent and moved out of state.</p>

<p>I think you are now splitting hairs. How does this loss of a child you had heretofore been supporting financially and are no longer supporting not qualify as a material financial change?</p>

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<p>Blossom, reread my post. It is OPTIONAL for me to file a form. I only needed to resubmit the form if I wanted more money from the Maryland Delegate Scholarship. Otherwise, nothing need be resubmitted throughout the four years.</p>

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<p>And it would be OPTIONAL for me to inform my previous employer who is still paying my health insurance premiums that I’ve found another job and am now covered under their insurance. But why would I try to “double dip” when the intent was so generous? It’s not like another kid would get money out of Maryland Delegate Scholarship if your kid wasn’t, right? They just flush the money down the drain if you don’t collect it. Like my previous employer- it only costs them a few thousand dollars, they’d never miss it.</p>

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<p>Yes, every year there is some outrage from a legislator about a Va. student with a high SAT score or a high GPA who didn’t get accepted into their favorite in-state school. We don’t know the other facts about those applicant - such as did they take easy courses, or screw up for a semester, or not take the essays seriously?</p>

<p>In response to pressures about the in-state/out of state ratio, UVa and the State came to a compromise. The out of state ratio would stay the same as it has for the last several decades (averaging about 30%), while the enrollment of both in-state and out of state students would increase in logical phases. This agreement is conditioned upon the State providing consistent funding for each new in-state student. It is also part of a state-wide policy to increase the number of STEM graduates. UVa makes a profit off of each full pay OOS student, which is necessary to make up for declining state funding. The cost of in-state tuition plus state funding does not cover the costs of educating in-state students.</p>

<p>There are other states that have made it much easier for OOS to be accepted into their state flagships, but UVa is not one of them. Instead, OOS admissions have gotten much more difficult because of a 30% increase in applications over the last few years and a huge increase in high-stat international students.</p>

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<p>He’s been splitting hairs from the beginning. ALL of these schemes are based on hair-splitting, and creative interpretations of the rules.</p>

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<p>Northern Virginia is very competitive to gain admission to our top schools, it’s no secret. If the student had a 4.01 then this is obviously weighted. In 2011 when my second son graduated (so I know the stat) a 4.01 would not have put you in the top 10% of the class. These kids are considered based on what opportunities were available to them, the number of APs their school offers vs the number they took, their scores, their ECs, their essays. It is very easy to walk into any NoVa high school and find students with a 4.0+ and SATs topping 2100s that were not accepted to UVa, W&M, or VT Engineering. These kids didn’t do anything ‘wrong’, it’s just a very competitive admit. If they’ve been paying attention they know this, have managed expectations, and have applied to a variety of schools so they have choices. Where you have a problem is when their parents have not helped these students mange expectations. It is very easy to find a family from any high school, any year, to write this very same story. It is not new and frankly it’s misleading.</p>

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<p>If you want to look at the differences between the states’ residency requirements, look at posts #15 (charlieschm for Virginia), #68 (noimagination for Florida), #73 (calmom for California), #44 (emeraldkity4 for Ohio). In my opinion, California and Virginia make it very difficult to charge residency from OOS to IS once you are enrolled. Florida is difficult, but not impossible. Ohio is almost lackadaisical. These are presumably the current laws, and not necessarily the ones of the books when taxguy’s daughter applied to UC presumably four or more years ago. Legislatures have tightened up lots of laws regarding money and who pays what in the last four years. The Maryland Delegate program appears to be an example. Currently a FAFSA form is required each year to retain eligibility, taxguy says it wasn’t four years ago. I am not going to research the issue.</p>

<p>No one has really addressed the issues raised by JHS in post #62 regarding the purpose of the OOS/IS tuition difference. It certainly is not taxes paid because most states only require about one years worth of residency by the parents for a dependent student to qualify for IS tuition. And for all the harping about legality and “intent of the law”, how many support DREAM Act legislation for illegal residents. As near as I can tell, nothing that taxguy did was illegal, and to borrow from Sir Thomas Moore in “A Man For All Seasons” -

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<p>You have got to be freakin’ kidding me!?
I certainly do not need a civics lessons from you.
Article IV says nothing about citizens not having access to higher education at the same tuition rate.</p>

<p>Article IV does, however, have the Fugitive Slave Clause though. Want to talk about that?</p>

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<p>:confused:</p>

<p>Link to where I said that.</p>

<p>I “claim” (?) to live in the great Commonwealth of Virginia.</p>

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<p>Sorry. :o</p>

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<p>Aha, no it doesn’t.</p>

<p>Virginia gets only 5.8 % of its budget from state budget appropriation.</p>

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<p>As we’ve just seen, my state tax dollars don’t go to support my own state school either.</p>

<p>This is a specious simple-minded argument that holds no validity what so ever.</p>