<p>One of my friend's husband lost his job. They have a senior in high school, and a sophomore in a state college. He is looking for jobs in various states, and they don't know when or where they might move. My concern is that their senior have an instate option SOMEWHERE next fall. I know they will need to ask at each college what the rules are, but could people chime in and make sure she knows the right questions to ask?</p>
<p>Obviously, if they moved now, they wouldn't have a year to establish residency anywhere. Would it be possible that they lose their current residency here and their kid would have no instate options?</p>
<p>If the wife stayed until the end of the school year, the senior could go to college here, but she needs to ask if she would be instate still if the parents moved afterwards.</p>
<p>What do people do in this situation? What does my friend need to watch for/ask?</p>
<p>I know that the University of Iowa at least used to allow a student admitted as instate stay as instate status all 4 years, even if the parents moved out of state, during those 4 years. The student had to maintain some standards, something like full time and not take any semesters off in order to keep the instate status. </p>
<p>You (your friend?) would have to ask if that extends to someone that has been admitted but not yet matriculated.</p>
<p>This kind of situation – more and more common – points up how asinine the idea is that state residency and college cost should be tied. </p>
<p>In any event, your friend and her family can get through it. Look at the residency rules for the public universities in the state where they (and you?) live. Many of the ones I have seen grant permanent residency status to students who graduate from an in-state high school they have attended for at least three years, even if their parents have left the state. Some determine residency at the time of first enrollment, and not thereafter, so as long as one parent keeps a residency toehold until then they would be OK. Some have special circumstance appeals for situations like this (and that could include the state to which they may move.) Also, if the family DOES move to another state, in the next couple of months, the student would likely qualify for in-state tuition in the new state by his second semester, considerably lessening the damage. (Unless it’s one of those states that say you can never establish residency after you enroll, in which case . . . consider a gap year, or look for January admission.)</p>
<p>Either way, it’s likely he will have an in-state option, and maybe even two. If he wants to be in-state in the current state, however, and the family is going to move, he may very well have to make arrangements to stay behind and finish high school where he is. (They’re probably thinking that way anyway; most people do.)</p>
<p>One more thing: they should read the rules carefully before talking to an administrator. The last thing they want to do is get the college sophomore’s residency status questioned.</p>
<p>California, for instance, has two relevant rules.</p>
<p>First, if the parents lived in California for at least a year, then moved elsewhere when the child was under 18, and the child remains in California (“except for short absences”) and enrolls in a college within a year of the parents’ departure, the child will remain a California resident for tuition purposes as long as he is continuously enrolled in some California college. (I.e., it can be community college then a UC.)</p>
<p>Second, if the child attended at least three years of high school in California, and graduated from high school in California, he will not be assessed non-resident tuition even if he does not qualify for residency.</p>
<p>If California is the new state, they would have to wait until the second quarter/semester, but then the child would have residency status (assuming at least one parent moved there this year).</p>
<p>Penn State has different, and more vague rules. They say that a student who has stayed in Pennsylvania “other than for educational purposes” for 12 months “immediately prior to his initial enrollment” at Penn State will remain a Pennsylvania resident for tuition purposes even if his parents have moved away. I suspect that staying to finish high school when the family leaves will be considered “other than for educational purposes”, but going to boarding school won’t. On the moving-in side, a student who has not lived in Pennsylvania “other than for educational purposes” for 12 months prior to enrollment will be presumed not to be a Pennsylvania resident, but that implies you can rebut the presumption, which having the rest of your family move here and get employed probably ought to do. And, in any event, the student would get residency status in a year.</p>
<p>I was just recently doing e-mail with UW-Madison on this topic as we are thinking of moving OOS as soon as S15 finishes HS, asked them if he could attend as instate for the 4 years so long as he graduates HS here and would he have to stay all summer in Madison. </p>
<p>This is the reply:</p>
<p>In response to your question, your son could potentially qualify as a resident if he remains in Wisconsin and does not move with his parents or change his residence to that of his parents in another state. As long as he has resided in Wisconsin for a substantial portion of his years of minority (9 years or longer), and the twelve months preceding enrollment, he should be able to pay the in-state tuition rates, but there are additional steps that he needs to take, as an adult, to continue to be classified as a resident. He should establish and maintain all legal ties in Wisconsin, such as drivers license, voters registration and voting only in Wisconsin, car registration in Wisconsin, if he owns a car, obtaining employment and filing taxes as a Wisconsin resident, and taking steps to become a financially self-supporting adult (including tuition), as dependency on parents who are not Wisconsin residents is not consistent with the provisions of State law regarding residence status for tuition purposes.</p>
<p>Office of the Registrar
Residence for Tuition
333 East Campus Mall, Room 10301
Madison, WI 53715</p>
<p>I think the answer is yes, but it looks he would have to stay here that summer and also continue working at least part-time while in college. Not sure exactly how much he has to work, have to clarify that with them.</p>
<p>celesteroberts, let me try to translate some of the nuances I hear in the reply you quoted:</p>
<p>Unlike California, Wisconsin does not have a specific statute that covers the situation of a kid whose parents move around the time he graduates from high school and before enrollment at college. As an administrative matter, they are trying to have something of the same policy, but they have to fit it around the background statutory rules that are generally meant to be hard-to-impossible to satisfy.</p>
<p>There are two aspects to that. First, the child should not have the trappings of residency anyplace other than Wisconsin. So . . . driver’s license, voter registration, mailing address, filing tax returns (whether or not he has any tax liability) as a resident – all that has to be in Wisconsin and not elsewhere. Secondly, while it looks like they understand that he is not likely ever to satisfy the test for financial independence, they want there to be a story that he is “taking steps” to achieve financial independence. I don’t think that really means he absolutely has to work during the college term (although, honestly, most kids probably do that anyway). It may mean, though, that he has to work and earn income (and pay state taxes) at least part of each year, on a regular basis. If he does that, the university will politely not notice that he is still dependent on his parents, who now live elsewhere.</p>
<p>Thanks. I was hoping that is what they are saying. Of course he’ll work part-time, does that now during school year and full time summer. But he can’t possibly pay the total cost of college out of earnings!!</p>
<p>I strongly object to the description of the residency and college costs as “asinine”. Although many public colleges are getting less financial support from their states the state taxpayers still are spending their tax dollars on their public colleges/universities. </p>
<p>There can never be perfect rules- moving OOS during senior year of HS is one of those cracks people slip into. In a perfect world the fact that one grew up in a state and parents paid into the state would count for something. However, then parents moving into a state for only 13 months shouldn’t get the same benefits as those paying into the system a lot longer…</p>
<p>In a perfect world everyone would do things MY way. But, since I don’t rule the world we are stuck with many different ways of approaching problems. There is no way to make enough rules to cover all situations.</p>
<p>In a perfect world, states would be thrilled if a student came and settled there, and paid taxes after graduating. In a perfect world, someone who lived in a state and paid taxes for, say, 40 years might be able to send his kid to college there even if the whole family moved in a kid’s JUNIOR year.</p>
<p>If paying taxes were the real rationale for residency requirements, why don’t the requirements ever involve looking at whether anybody in the family actually paid taxes?</p>
<p>Thanks for the ideas and caveats. I will pass them along to her as they figure out what they will be doing. The current home state is WV–possible new states are Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania and maybe England, actually.</p>
Hi,
In our situation,( lived 9 years in NJ) my daughter completed her first three year of high school in NJ and last year in June 2014 we had to move to Texas because of her dad job (got laid off from earlier job and was unemployed almost for 4 month) . For fall 2015 she got accepted in NJ’s Rutgers university(her first choice) as out of state , but again we are moving back to NJ in July 2015 because her dad’s company allowed him to work from there. So my question is can we appeal to get in-state tuition? if not then do we qualify as in-state from second year means fall 2016?( since we will establish residency by 2016) . I would really appreciate if you would have any advice or suggestion…
Does the student have high academic credentials? “High” meaning enough to be competitive for admission to good-financial-aid private schools (and UVA and UNC-CH, which offer good financial aid to out-of-state students), or earn large enough merit scholarships at private and out-of-state public schools? These can be additional options if the states in question have rules that exclude the student from being in-state anywhere.
But they should also try searching for “[state flagship] residency for tuition purposes” for both the current state and any possible new states of residency to see what each state’s rules are like.