<p>I am nearing the half way point of my senior year, and both my parents just accepted jobs in Maryland (I currently reside in Ohio). I was hoping that someone could help me out with a few questions that I have:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Will my state of residency change from them moving to another state? </p></li>
<li><p>Do I need to be living with them if their address is what is used on my FAFSA?</p></li>
<li><p>Does living with another family member change my financial aid status and/or whether or not I qualify as a dependent student?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Any response is very much appreciated, Thanks.</p>
<p>You need to find out if Ohio will consider you in-state for tuition and fees if you stay there and graduate from high school.</p>
<p>In Maryland, some of the community colleges will consider you in-state for tuition and fees after your parents have lived there for three months. You need to check each of the public universities there to find out what their policies are. They might be different from each other.</p>
<p>If you decide to stay in Ohio to finish up at your high school, that won’t change the fact that you are dependent. It will be OK if your mailing address is different from your parents. Their address will be presumed to be your “permanent” address. Your mailing address will be a school-year address just like for someone in boarding school.</p>
<p>And congratulations to your parents on their new jobs!</p>
<p>You need to check the rules for both states (and possibly each public school in each state) to see whether you can be in-state for tuition purposes. It is entirely possible that a move at this stage will cause you to be out-of-state for both states in your first year of college, due to waiting periods.</p>
<p>But despite ucbalumnus’ dire warning, it’s a lot more likely that you could be considered in-state for whichever of the states you choose. </p>
<p>Ohio, like most states, will treat you as in-state if you lived there for some period of time, graduated from high school in Ohio, and take steps to establish residency there (things like voter registration, driver’s license, working and paying taxes). </p>
<p>Maryland will presume that you are out-of-state if you were living in Ohio when you applied to Maryland, but it will give you a chance to rebut that presumption, and evidence that your entire family has moved to Maryland, that your only address is in Maryland, and that you have gotten a Maryland driver’s license, registered to vote, etc., will almost certainly suffice to establish your Maryland residency, if not immediately, then by the first term whose last registration day is 12 months or more after the date your family moved to Maryland.</p>
<p>You aren’t likely to qualify as a resident in both states, only because the things you do to show that you really intend to be a resident of one state will mean that you can’t do those things in the other state. (Or at least you can’t do them legally in both states.) </p>