OOS student and an expensive tuition! HELP! (University of California)

Paying for College
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Here’s how in state / OOS tuition works, generally speaking.

If you are unmarried and under age 24, the school will look at the following:

  1. Where did you go to/graduate high school?
  2. What is your residence address, and for how long? What are your previous addresses?
  3. What is the residence address of your parents and for how long? What are their previous addresses?
  4. Where do you and/or your family members file taxes, and for how long?
  5. If you have been absent from your state for a long period of time, what was the reason?

The general rule is that if you’re a dependent student under age 24, your state of residence for tuition purposes is the same as your parents’ state of residence. For you, this will be Puerto Rico. There isn’t a way to change it because even if you list your sister’s address as yours, the rest of your documentation will show PR residency and you will be classified as an OOS resident for tuition purposes.

If you lie and get caught, you will face a variety of academic, legal and financial penalties, possibly including dismissal from school and/or being required to pay the difference in tuition, including back tuition, before you can continue with classes (assuming you’re still allowed to). It may even be considered fraud.

People have already told you that residency changes are not possible, but here are the details so you know where they’re coming from.

  1. If you go to another state and attend school, your presence in that state will be classified as “for educational purposes.” In other words, you came to the state to attend school there. You cannon obtain in-state residency for tuition purposes while your presence is classified as "for educational purposes. This means that going to a CC and then transferring while hoping for in-state residency will not work. You will be OOS at the new school, too. Yes, even if you have an in-state address and driver’s license, and even if you’ve lived in that state for two years.

  2. In order to obtain in-state residency for tuition purposes, you have to have lived in the state for two years without going to school. In addition, you’ll need to show things like proof of address, proof of a job, an in-state driver’s license, proof of paying in-state taxes, etc. And if you’re under age 24, you STILL might be classified as OOS if your parents don’t also live in your new state.

Some states only require one year instead of two, but seriously, it’s that hard. ESPECIALLY in California. There may be a few states that allow you to accrue time to residency for tuition purposes while taking classes, and I think Utah is one of them, so maybe look into universities in Utah.

  1. If you turn 24, are married or are a grad student, then you are no longer considered a dependent student and you will have an easier time getting in-state tuition if you move.

I am not saying this to be harsh. I get that your situation sucks, and that you really, really want to attend college somewhere other than PR. I wish we had easy answers for you. Unfortunately, we don’t.

Your best shot at college on the US mainland is A) see which schools might grant you in-state tuition because of the ongoing crisis in PR (Florida might), or B) attend one of the affordable options people have tried to help you find.

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UNM ranks #8 nationally in a recent study measuring return on investment and social mobility for its graduates

https://www.brookings.edu/research/ladders-labs-or-laggards-which-public-universities-contribute-most/

The university and the state also celebrate Spanish heritage including hosting the top international Flamenco festival annually. Spanish also is widely spoken in New Mexico.

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@Volatyl

Are your parents married? You mentioned only putting your mom’s income on your FAFSA because you are on her taxes…but if your parents are married…BOTH parents incomes and assets are required to be listed.

If your parents are married, there are two tax filing options for your mom…married filing jointly, or married filing separately.

If your parents are divorced or separated, you would list the parent with whom you spent the majority of the year prior to your FAFSA filing.

I hope you did this correctly!

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@DiotimaDM Your Part 3. A. - Less popular hidden gems with a high sympathetic Hispanic pop like New Mexico might also grant instate status to PR students. I would really work that. Talk about your ongoing crisis, your love for the school, your top grades. Work it.

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@gearmom So you’re thinking they might give her actual in-state status, not just an OOS tuition waiver for her undergrad?

If they did, it would be epic because then she’d have access to the SOM at in-state rates, too. In-state tuition at the SOM is cheap enough to make a mother cry! I wish my S could get it. It’s half the cost of the med schools here in CA, and that’s with in-state CA rates. For him, though, he’d have to take two years off between undergrad and applying to the SOM.

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I think with the tragedy still happening in PR many states and colleges are sympathetic.

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Just want to reiterate about California: IT IS NOT TROPICAL!, IT’S EXPENSIVE! PREMED COURSES ARE TOUGH!

NOT TROPICAL! I wish!
I’m in San Diego, south of IRVINE, and we’ve had cold rain. We ran out of firewood in early January, so we’ve had to purchase bundles for the past couple of months. I turned on the heater this morning, with temperatures in the 40’s. Our heating bill these past couple of months has been ridiculous! My daughter attended Davis. We had to buy her the Northern California gear: rain boots, The North Face/Patagonia jackets, good waterproof gloves, bike seat rain covers.

EXPENSIVE: You won’t get instate residency, period, regardless of what you attempt (residency, CC, etc.) because coming to California for educational purposes puts you at OOS rates for CC, UC’s CSU’s etc. until you are 24.

My dd lives in SF. She pays $2500 per month for a small shared 1-bedroom. It is tiny. It has 3 rooms: a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen. That is it!

That is the Bay Area, but rents are similar in San Jose and Irvine. Assume $24K to $30K minimum for housing, not including internet, food, utilities and transportation. Oh and our public transportation, in most of California is horrible. Southern Cal is even worse, so assume a large part of your budget will be transportation, unless you want to stay on a commuter (UCI) campus 24/7.

(Why do we live in California? My husband and I were born here and bought homes before the prices of everything went up and have paid decades of high California taxes.)

TOUGH: Also, most students have a tough time competing for good med school grades because of the timelines. Most of the UC’s (Davis/Irvine included) are on quarter systems. Unless you are accustomed to a quarter system (which many of the California High Schools are in, or are going to), the rapid rate of 10 weeks of coursework, weeds out thousands of students. My dd’s school was on a type of quarter system in HS, so she was accustomed to that schedule. She was at Davis and the rapidity the coursework, overwhelmed her freshman-year roommates; they dropped out of the med majors. (Also: the amount of money we spent on her"supplemental" texts and lab fees were eye-dropping.)

PERSONAL NOTE: You don’t want your parents worried about paying Parent Plus Loans as you go to school. Why would you do that to them? I still feel guilty about my parents begging and borrowing money from friends and relatives for my education 40 years ago. This, I believe led to an early grave for my father.

Go to a school where you will feel supported in every way! People here have provided some excellent options for you. Be smart and take advantage of some of those options.

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@DiotimaDM Ooops. And I can’t edit. Should be instate rates (with a OOS tuition waiver). Sloppy work on my part. Thanks for catching. I had been reading too many instate status posts.

@enginmom4 I agree. Massachusetts might but that won’t help because they are very, very expensive for instate students.

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Her stats will get her an automatic OOS waiver at UNM if she applies. Not actual in-state classification, though, so she’d have to pay OOS rates at the SOM if she applied and got in down the road.

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Well…she could graduate from UNM…get a job and work there for a year or two…establish residency…and then apply to NM SOM…as an instate resident…right?

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Yes, that’s how she’d have to do it if she wanted to attend UNM SOM and pay in-state rates. This is one of my son’s options, too. If he goes that route, he’s hoping to land an ER Tech job in the hospital or work as a Paramedic for the intervening two years.

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^yes. If she graduates, works in NM for two years (building her profile for med schools), she’d be instate for the school of medicine at UNM which is an insanely good deal compared to about any other med school.
I agree that if she emails UNM they may grant her instate status right off the bat due to the situation in Puerto Rico, which would make things even easier.

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UNM does not use super scores for admission, and I learned they don’t use them for scholarships either from speaking with the financial aid office a few months ago. Do we even know if OP qualifies for the Amigo with a single-sitting score?

https://admissions.unm.edu/future-students/freshmen/admission-requirements.html

There are Puerto Rican students at UNM, and many, many people do speak Spanish (Hispanic or not).

Also, NM is a fairly liberal state in my opinion, but there are many conservatives (and Kirtland AFB is near UNM), and everything in between.

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And the reason for this is that the Uni will immediately see the zip code of the high school that you graduated from and flag that account when you mark in-state.

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If she doesn’t qualify for the Amigo, LUE-plus kicks in at 1100 SAT, and it looks like the only difference is not getting the $200 stipend that comes with the Amigo. UNM is super generous with OOS tuition waivers.

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I would say NM is politically schizophrenic. It depends where you live.

Supposedly Hubert H. Humphrey once told a student of his that if you want to study politics, you’d get your BA working in the Illinois legislature, your MA in working NY state politics and your PhD working at New Mexico State House.

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@Volatyl are your parents married or living together? Or are they separated/divorced and living apart?

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@Volatyl

This question about your parent being married…or not…is important.

Please read my previous post about this. If they are married, even if they file taxes separately, you are required to list both incomes on your FAFSA…and this would include retirement income for your dad. That is not excluded either.

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@Volatyl Taking a different path is very different from giving up. If you are anything like my kids, or me for that matter, it’s impossible to reroute without some time to mourn the vision in your head. Give yourself a few days to be sad and angry. Then, regroup and look at your options. There have been some ideas in previous posts worth looking into. You have done well. You got into a competitive school. None of that goes away because you go to a local university or in a different state than desired.

FWIW, as a Californian, I can tell you that our state is heavily romanticized. I’ve driven all over it and lived in several different areas and I’m telling you, some parts are desolate and conservative and not at all diverse. Some parts are under cloud cover much of the time while other parts struggle to keep anything green due to years of drought. It’s extremely costly and frankly, UC’s and CSU’s can be too expensive for many in-state kids who had any dreams of living away from home. They tend to be crowded and I know our local UC is upfront that it’ll likely take an extra two quarters to graduate. My own kids have been eager to experience new states and we don’t fight it because they’ve found better deals elsewhere. California has some really nice qualities but they aren’t unique in that. I think every state has valid reasons one would want to live there.

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It sounds like the sticker price already made the choice for you. Based on their income, you won’t be able to get private co-signed loans either(bad idea anyway). You need to look at this decision rationally. California is the most expensive place in the country to live in. The only option I can see is to join ROTC and get a scholarship. Even then, your cost of living is going to be so high, that might be over your price range.