Hello! I’m a high school senior in Illinois, and today I’ve been offered the Knight’s Achievement Award by UCF (out of state tuition waiver): $44K for 4 years of studies. My question is – once I become a Florida resident, will my award be cancelled? In other words, once I’m a resident, can I use the $44K to pay off the first couple years of tuition AND pay IN-STATE tuition for the remaining years using my own money? Or would the whole package be voided, resulting in me paying full OOS price? Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you in advance!
I don’t think they give you money, they just don’t charege you the out-of-state tuition rate. So if your status changes (and it would probably take a certain amount of time of residency to do that, it wouldn’t happen right away), then once again you would only be charged in-state rates. So your status money-wise would remain the same whether you were in-state or not. There is no sum of money floating around that you can use to pay off other parts of your bill.
Good luck, you will love the weather down here!
Thank you for your reply. That is true, however, they will only charge me in state tuition for the years after I gain my residency status. What will I have to pay for the years prior to that? The full out of state tuition price of $22,000? Thanks so much in advance.
In such a scenario, wouldn’t it be wise to not establish residency and instead utilize all of the $44,000 to my advantage?
I’m no expert, ItalianDude, but from what you’ve said they are awarding you 11K annually. The actual difference in tuition of in-state vs out of state is 16K.
So are you saying they are giving you in-state rates (i.e. charging you 6700 tuition annually), AND giving you 11K per year on top of that?
If so, I imagine you get to apply that to your college expenses whether you’re in state or not.
If the 11k is a deduction from out of state rates, then yes, gaining residency ASAP would be a priority, because you’d save even more simply by being a resident.
You’d have to ask someone about what it takes to establish Florida residency, I’m not sure how much time that takes.
Good luck!
No, they are charging me out of state tuition rates, but they are offering me $44,000 in scholarship money, so the cost of a normal school year would be cut in half for me since I get 11K per year. I contacted the financial aid office and they told me that by becoming a resident, I shall lose the reward entirely. So in my case, I shouldn’t establish residency for tuition purposes, as I would have to pay full price for the years prior to obtaining residency, and then pay in state tuition for the rest of my years.
Do you know the process of establishing residency over there? Because I am currently a freshman in college in Texas and I am looking to transfer over to UCF, but those out of state tuition is so expensive, that I rather gain residency first.