I’m a 22 year old applying for part-time enrollment in a Maine state university and can’t find in-state details online for former residents. I should elaborate that I lived in Maine for 19 years. My state I.D., library card, voter registration card, and GED and Associate’s degrees are from this state. Both of my parents lived there for the same amount of time. I have only lived out of state for the past 6 months, but at the very least I have my current mailing address for where I live now. My address and job are the only proofs that I have lived in this current state; I have no I.D., voter registration, or license here.
I want to know if I would still qualify for Maine in-state tuition if I’m taking state college classes online. I plan to move back to Maine and attend in-person classes eventually. Also, I still have one parent who lives up there, but we have an estranged relationship so I don’t have an actual address I can fill out. I just know that he still lives somewhere there. Further complicating matters is that I don’t have a solid date on when I’m going to move back, just that I want to do so before year’s end.
I have talked to someone in the college about this issue and they said I should be fine to register as in-state, but I wanted to touch base with others in this forum to see if anyone has similar experience. It’s also confusing to fill out an application where I place my current address in one state when I want to pay in-state tuition for another state.
So have I lost my residency with Maine entirely? It would depress me if I did; I miss it so much. This place sucks. xD
Usually you need to establish residency before you enroll in college. So if you are moving back, why don’t you wait. You graduated from a Maine HS?
When you are initially classified as oos it may be much harded to get a reclassification than just to be instate from the start.
I find your post a bit confusing. Are you talking about taking classes online for a Maine college while you live and work in another state? That would not get you instate tuition that I can see.
No student is eligible for in-state tuition classification until he or she has become domiciled in Maine, in accordance with University guidelines, before such registration.the student is in Maine for educational purposes, and that the student is not in Maine to establish a domicile. A residence established for the purpose of attending a UMS campus shall not by itself constitute domicile. The burden will be on the student to prove that he or she has established a Maine domicile for other than educational purposes. An individual who has lived in the State of Maine, for other than educational purposes, one year prior to registration or application to a campus is considered an in-state student.
It seems pretty clear that you have to live there one year prior to enrolling. I don’t know if any exceptions would be made for a student that other than 6 or 9 months priviously was a Maine residet and can show that he didn’t cut ties (having the documents you have.) You would have to ask the admissions office if such an exception could be granted.
@BrownParent that may not be the appropriate residency site. I’m not sure the OP is going for grad school. He mentions a GED and AA. Here is the undergrad link http://umaine.edu/bursar/residency-guidelines/ though no more helpful really.
OP should be very careful about his driver’s license - if he has moved out of state, which it seems he has, he may be required to surrender his ME license and get a new license in his current state.
^^ok, thanks. I just grabbed a link while I was in an edit window so didn’t read closely, sorry OP
I still think living and working out of state you will not get instate tuition under those conditions. You are not temporarily oos until you move back anyway.
If you travel to a temporary (1 year) job that is out of state, you could possibly be considered to be on-site at the job location for that time. I am not sure if that is your situation. As a life-long Maine resident who is only out of state temporarily (for the past 6 months and the ensuing 6 months), it seems likely that there is a way to maintain your residency. If a university official advised you that you are in-state, I would go with that advice.
I would also look for a Maine Permanent Address (your parent or where you will eventually be living- maybe friends that are sharing a house or whatever) so that your transition back later this year will be more smooth.
“OP should be very careful about his driver’s license”
I do not have any driver’s license, hence why I instead referred to my state ID and voter registration.
As for my parents, I am currently living with one parent under whom I am filed as a dependent student. My other parent lives in Maine, but but unfortunately said parent has not had direct involvement in my life, financial or otherwise, since 2012, not to mention I do not know his exact address.
Honestly, I’m just confused on what to place as my state of legal residence. It just seems wrong to place the state I’m in (the State That Will Not Be Named) as my legal residency considering I have very little ties here aside from current address and job. I came down here for family emergency reasons and plan to move out once they’re resolved. Heck, even my only phone number is still based in Maine.
Register to vote as a Maine resident, and request an absentee ballot because you are temporarily out of state for work.
File Maine income tax returns.
Maintain or renew your Maine ID or get a Maine driver’s license; do NOT get a new ID/license in another state.
Buy a car and title and register it in Maine. (Yes, you can do this even without a driver’s license. You can’t drive it legally on public roads without a valid license, of course.)
Basically, show in all ways that despite working out of state, you never had any intention of leaving Maine permanently or establishing legal residency elsewhere.
The sticking point seems to be that you need a Maine address for many of these things. After all, they cannot determine your polling place (for example) unless they know your home address.
Actually @FCCDAD for financial,aid purposes there IS a custodial parent for a 22 year old.
And in my opinion, it would draw some questions if this custodial parent place of residence did not match that of the student,
But even if the residency were allowed, the student would still need to list a custodial parent ON the financial,aid application forms. If the student has not lived with a parent for a while, the last parent he did reside with would be the custodial parent. Those are the fafsa rules.
No, there is no “custody” unless the adult is specifically placed under someone’s legal care by the court. For a mentally competent adult (not imprisoned or otherwise held by our legal system), no one has custody of them. They are at liberty to do as they please within the bounds of the law.
For financial aid purposes there can be a parent providing support and/or claiming the student as a dependent. There can even be a home of record. That is NOT the same as custody, at all. Custody is a specific set of legal rights and responsibilities regarding a person in your care.
I said that for financial,aid purposes there had to be a custodial parent of record. And there does.
And it will raise some questions if the parent for financial aid purposes does not reside in the same state as the student.
I’m still wondering how someone who is employed, and has a residence in a state other than Maine can be considered a resident of Maine.
But maybe they can. However, if I were this student, I would make NO assumptions at all about instate status for residency purposes. I would get this clarified IN WRITING immediately.
I think it is always going to boil down to this question: were you a resident of Maine for the year prior to enrollment? And if the answer is “no” then it will likely have to be an exception basis and if they make that exception or not is something you will have to ask them.
I think a 22 yo living and working in Maine, graduated from hs in Maine and CC in Maine can get instate even if one parent is OOS. But the issue is OP is not a resident currently.