I might be getting slightly ahead of myself because I’m not planning on finishing up at the JC level for another year and a half, but it never hurts to plan early. I’m from CA and right now the four-year uni that I’m fixated on - U. of Nevada, Las Vegas - runs an annual price tag of around $30k for out-of-staters. Still, I figure that I could declare NV residency after a few months and presumably knock down the price by about a third; part of the reason of me wanting to go there, honestly, is that I’ve wanted to move to NV my entire life (stemming from a childhood packed with NV vacations that lead me to fall in love with the state), so declaring residency would be an eventual goal anyway.
Now, before anybody flips out about this, I just want to assure you guys that I’m not set in stone insofar as any of this stuff is concerned. I won’t be making final decisions for another year or so anyway, and I’d never choose UNLV if I couldn’t find a way to make it work for me financially. After all, I’m not a math/science guy, nor am I a future Ph.D candidate, so it doesn’t make sense for me to accrue mountains of student loan debt for the BA that’s going to represent the end of my educational career.
So did anybody here ever have to deal with out-of-state tuition? How did you handle it? Any advice?
I live in California, and my younger daughter went to Maryland. We just paid it. It was cheap in comparison to the private school my older daughter went to.
When I went to Illinois for grad school the grant paid my tuition, but the department encouraged us to become Illinois residents to make it cheaper. You should check out the rules - sometimes the state puts obstacles in the way of college students to avoid them doing this. My son-in-law to Rutgers for law school, and they told him how to get New Jersey residency to save money. He did that, fairly easily, and it saved him a lot.
Declaring in-state residency for tuition purposes is usually not easy – universities understandably want students to jump through a lot of hoops. You should check the rules at UNLV, but in most cases, you should plan to move there as soon as it’s feasible, find a job, get an in-state driver’s license, and register to vote ASAP. Even so, expect to live there for a year or so before the university will let you claim in-state residency.
I understand you want to live in Nevada, but why UNLV? Why not just go to a cheaper, better school? Or an equivalent-price, better school? You can always move to Nevada after that. You have to have lived in Nevada for a year prior to starting classes for in-state tuition anyway.
I knew a kid who took maximum courses at the community college that could be taken without incurring out of state fees. Simultaneously she took maximum courses at the university without incurring out of state fees. About six semester hours at both institutions for about two semester. By this time residency had been established. She got a lot of elective crap out of the way during his first year. I don’t know more details.
I didn’t pay out-of-state tuition, but I had a friend from Ohio who dodged Michigan’s out-of-state tuition by ‘‘moving in’’ with his Michigan-resident Aunt. (At the time I think Michigan’s out of state tuition was about $40k per year.) Anyone you can ‘‘move in’’ with?
I am curious. Why UNLV? I don’t know much about the school at all, I just wonder what it is that makes it seem worth the extra tuition to you. Are there any other schools in the state that are cheaper that you have ruled out for one reason or another?
10 years ago I firmly believed one should follow one’s educational dreams regardless of the cost. After spending nearly a year post-Masters unemployed with $80k of student loan debt I’m not sure I feel the same way. You are smart to think very carefully about this.