Resident tuition

[frogger]

It's my understanding that you cannot gain independent status until 24 which seems crazy to me. If my son were to move to another state and live and work there a couple years he still could not get in state tuition, correct? Even though he had been living on his own in a completely different state, working, and paying whatever state taxes they had there.

 

It's really difficult for me to imagine since I'd bought and sold a home and had two kids by that age and lived in a different state by age 17. Perhaps I'd have more money saved up if I waited a decade or two to have him. But I'm pretty sure I can tell him that idea is not likely to work although I guess it would still work but kind of slow down his time line...a lot.

[luuknam]

I got in-state tuition a year after moving to a state because I moved there because I got married to a resident of that state. I.e. I didn't move there in order to attend college. Generally, proving that you didn't move there for college is harder, afaik.  

 

Edited December 21, 2017 by luuknam

[bettyandbob]

You need to refer to each state and each school, but I would expect overlap with the rules that apply to independence from parents for FAFSA. Independence for FAFSA is generally one of the following:

Age 24

Married

Have a child

Join the military

[Wheres Toto]

A yes to any of these makes you an independent student:

 

Were you born before Jan. 1, 1995? Y N

As of today, are you married? (Also answer “Yes†if you are separated but not divorced.) Y N

At the beginning of the 2018–19 school year, will you be working on a master’s or doctorate degree program (such as an MA, MBA, MD, JD, PhD, EdD, graduate certificate, etc.)? Y N

Are you currently serving on active duty in the U.S. armed forces for purposes other than training? (If you are a National Guard or Reserves enlistee, are you on active duty for other than state or training purposes?) Y N

Are you a veteran of the U.S. armed forces?* Y N

Do you now have—or will you have—children who will receive more than half of their support from you between July 1, 2018, and June 30, 2019? Y N

Do you have dependents (other than your children or spouse) who live with you and who receive more than half of their support from you, now and through June 30, 2019? Y N

At any time since you turned age 13, were both your parents deceased, were you in foster care, or were you a dependent or ward of the court? Y N

Has it been decided by a court in your state of legal residence that you are an emancipated minor or that someone other than your parent or stepparent has legal guardianship of you? (You also should answer “Yes†if you are now an adult but were in legal guardianship or were an emancipated minor immediately before you reached the age of being an adult in your state. Answer “No†if the court papers say “custody†rather than “guardianship.â€) Y N

At any time on or after July 1, 2017, were you determined to be an unaccompanied youth who was homeless or were self-supporting and at risk of being homeless, as determined by (a) your high school or district homeless liaison, (b) the director of an emergency shelter or transitional housing program funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or © the director of a runaway or homeless youth basic center or transitional living program?**

[Hoggirl]

For some reason I think establishing MO residency at Mizzou is doable after one's freshman year. By living and working in Missouri over the summer and earning a certain amount of income.

[frogger]

Interesting. I'd thought more along the lines of Where's Toto. I understand people pay taxes for their local school so I don't blame them for wanting to charge non-residents more but I'm also encouraging him not to have mortgage size loans and those two things aren't really compatable.

[GoodGrief]

Utah is one state where a student can get in-state tuition after living there for a year. There is a process for determining independence...they have to show they have cut all ties to the other state, and their parents cannot have claimed them as dependents on taxes; things like that. I think there may be one or two other places like that.

 

We are in an odd place as the parents of young adults. In general, our financial lives are still considered inseparable. On the other hand, the college is not allowed to tell us any personal information, including grades or housing situation! They are often on our insurance, but in many places we cannot even schedule a medical appointment for them (much to my daughter's chagrin; she really does not like to take the time to do that administrative stuff, lol)

[Lori D.]

On 12/20/2017 at 8:15 PM, frogger said:

It's my understanding that you cannot gain independent status until 24...

...If my son were to move to another state and live and work there a couple years he still could not get in state tuition, correct? ...

Here is the info from the Federal Student Aid website on who is dependent/independent for college financial aid purposes. (It is the list of questions posted by Where's Toto, but there is some additional info as well in the FAQ.)

As far as in-state tuition eligibility, as Heigh-Ho says, it depends on the state. In many states, it has to do with who is taking the tax deduction for the student (the student or the parent), and if the student has lived continuously in the state for the requisite amount of time (1-2 years, usually). Some states continue to take into account the parents' state of residency while the student is under 24yo. You can click on each individual state at the bottom of this FinAid article on State Residency to see what the requirements are.
 

On 12/20/2017 at 8:15 PM, frogger said:

...It's really difficult for me to imagine since I'd bought and sold a home and had two kids by that age and lived in a different state by age 17. Perhaps I'd have more money saved up if I waited a decade or two to have him. But I'm pretty sure I can tell him that idea is not likely to work although I guess it would still work but kind of slow down his time line...a lot.

You'll need to research your state, your student's future state of residence, and the potential future school(s) your DS is interested in before making that decision.

Not quite clear if your post was a JAWM thought, or if you were looking for ideas, or had a question about college and finances, BUT, I will say, it is a whole different situation now for this generation of students as far as the job market, how much income can be earned, and the skyrocketed costs of college. The idea of working for a few years and then going to college, all while living on your own or even starting a family is MUCH more difficult to do now than it was when you were 17. ?

If you are thinking about college and finances, here are a few ideas, and below is a link to a thread with more out-of-the-box ideas for alternatives to financing college. BEST of luck to you and DS! Warmly, Lori D. 
 

- Does the university in your town/city have the degree program of interest to your student, so that your student can live at home and save $8,000-$10,000 a year by not having to pay for room & board (whether in a dorm, or in an apartment and fixing own food)?

- Will the student receive more financial aid by going directly to a 4-year university after high school graduation?
(The largest scholarships, and the most renewable (good for more than 1 year) awards are given to in-coming freshmen. In contrast, there are far fewer transfer scholarships, and they are usually of smaller amounts and frequently just 1-time awards. (Transfer students are either students returning to college several years after high school graduation, or students who started at one school and change to a different school even after taking just one college class.) 

- Or would going to the local Community College (CC) for 2 years first and then transferring for the last 2 years of a Bachelor degree be more financially feasible?
(Many CCs are cheaper than 4-year universities, and have good transfer policies and articulation agreements so that credits earned at the CC go right towards a 4-year degree.)

- Or, go to the local CC and earn an AAS degree in a field of high interest to the student, and enter the work force at a higher level of pay after just 2 years to earn the AAS? And possibly even get started on that AAS while still in high school and living at home with lower expenses via dual enrollment?

- Does your CC have a FREE tuition policy for high school students doing dual enrollment?
(If your student still has 2 years before graduation, consider doing the last 2 as all dual enrollment, knocking off 2 years toward a college degree while earning simultaneous (rigorous) high school credits. And, many universities do not have a credit limit for incoming freshmen, and a student with a lot of DE and a good GPA from the CC is likely to earn good scholarship money to the university.)

- What about living at home and working, while simultaneously doing online college with something like Lumerit (formerly College Plus), or a similar "do-it-yourself" option?

- If your student is a good "tester", what about knocking out a lock of credits by exam with CLEP tests in the last year or two of high school?

S/O: Cautionary tale/high college costs -- a brainstorm $$ ideas thread! 

Edited September 29, 2018 by Lori D.

[frogger]

Thank you for the article Lori. That will give me a springboard for research per state.

 

Our university doesn't have a degree program in his area of study and we only have one major university in our state. We do have some smaller colleges but not related to his field. 

 

It also is an engineering field where it looks like a  long sequence of classes is required making it hard to just transfer halfway through.

 

He will most likely be eligible for some scholarship money at the particular institutions we are looking at if he goes as a freshman but he will still have mega loans even with the scholarship help unless he gets a special scholarship which there are few of like the Stamps scholarship at Ann-Arbor. I'm not holding my breath for that!  Essay writing about himself is going to be scary.    In fact the scholarships that we have researched that seem more likely bring the amount down to what our EFC would be at some Ivies.  Honestly it would be cheaper to go to Stanford per their calculator but that is highly unlikely for this particular student.  We have looked at others like Rensselaer but the money issue looked like such a joke we didn't pursue them further so we are looking at the cheapest ones possible which right now looks like places like Ohio State and Missouri S&T but those are really at the top of affordability to us. 

 

 

 

Another option is to just get a BS in a related field and try to get some graduate classes in his field of interest.  I'm not sure that would work out though or if he would even be accepted to graduate school but it would open up a couple affordable options including one instate and one possible full tuition merit aid  (in Huntsville) or at least bring it down a lot.   

 

So we are trying to look at every option.

 

[JanetC]

What is the major?

 

Which state are you in? Sometimes there is a tuition compact for getting a major not offered in your state by attending college in a state within the compact.

 

What is the budget? With top grades and test scores, it's possible to get merit down to in-state tuition even at places like Purdue that don't have the same huge merit the state of Alabama offers.

 

This map is out of date, but getting in-state tuition will be at least as hard as this map indicates since there's no trend to make getting in-state easier.

 

https://www.instateangels.com/state-tuition-rules-search/

[frogger]

We live in Alaska. We have looked through WUE schools which is all the Western State schools that have an agreement. There are a few such as the University of New Mexico, one in Oregon, etc. but honestly it's not 1-1 exchange it's 1.5x resident tuition and it turns out to be a similar cost to Missouri S&T or Ohio State when all is said and done and we account for likely potential scholarships. He is only a Junior so we have a little while before we will know much definitly.

 

He is most interested in a physics engineering major, a second to that would be nuclear engineering, and then electrical engineering.

 

We were looking closely at New Mexico and it may be in the running depending on scholarship availability.

[frogger]

Thanks for the map. Very interesting.

[JanetC]

New Mexico has a number of merit scholarships, depending on how your test scores turn out.

 

http://scholarship.unm.edu/scholarships/non-resident.html

 

Electrical engineering will give you a much longer list of schools

Edited December 22, 2017 by JanetC

[MarkT]

We live in Alaska. We have looked through WUE schools which is all the Western State schools that have an agreement. There are a few such as the University of New Mexico, one in Oregon, etc. but honestly it's not 1-1 exchange it's 1.5x resident tuition and it turns out to be a similar cost to Missouri S&T or Ohio State when all is said and done and we account for likely potential scholarships. He is only a Junior so we have a little while before we will know much definitly.

 

He is most interested in a physics engineering major, a second to that would be nuclear engineering, and then electrical engineering.

 

We were looking closely at New Mexico and it may be in the running depending on scholarship availability.

also take a look at New Mexico Tech 

DS decided against going there but I really liked the school and the campus when we did a visit.

[GoodGrief]

We live in Alaska. We have looked through WUE schools which is all the Western State schools that have an agreement. There are a few such as the University of New Mexico, one in Oregon, etc. but honestly it's not 1-1 exchange it's 1.5x resident tuition and it turns out to be a similar cost to Missouri S&T or Ohio State when all is said and done and we account for likely potential scholarships. He is only a Junior so we have a little while before we will know much definitly.

 

He is most interested in a physics engineering major, a second to that would be nuclear engineering, and then electrical engineering.

 

We were looking closely at New Mexico and it may be in the running depending on scholarship availability.

 

We're in Alaska too :-) If he is interested in electrical, you probably know there are programs at both UAAnchorage and UAFairbanks. Make sure the classes for the Performance Scholarship are in order, in case he needs one of those as a backup plan. They really are decent programs, but don't have the physics engineering or nuclear, of course. :-) The price is right though!

 

My daughter is electrical engineering, and ended up out of state. We did look at a lot of the WUE schools, but the cost was never quite low enough. UNM has great scholarships, and would be a nice place to go to school. We lived in Albuquerque for a couple of years, and I like it! I hope you find just what he needs.

[MarkT]

We're in Alaska too :-) If he is interested in electrical, you probably know there are programs at both UAAnchorage and UAFairbanks. Make sure the classes for the Performance Scholarship are in order, in case he needs one of those as a backup plan. They really are decent programs, but don't have the physics engineering or nuclear, of course. :-) The price is right though!

 

My daughter is electrical engineering, and ended up out of state. We did look at a lot of the WUE schools, but the cost was never quite low enough. UNM has great scholarships, and would be a nice place to go to school. We lived in Albuquerque for a couple of years, and I like it! I hope you find just what he needs.

WUE

NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY

Engineering Physics/Applied Physics BS

 

NEW MEXICO INSTITUTE OF MINING AND TECHNOLOGY

could do minor in Physics

along with Engineering

   

[JanetC]

Coming from Alaska, UNM is going to be an easier trip, near major airport, than New Mexico Tech.

[wapiti]

On the possibility of large loans, as I understand this, students are rather limited in the amount they are allowed to borrow.  Large loans would be parent loans or, at a minimum, cosigned by a parent.

 

ETA, if majoring in engineering with a physics minor would do the trick, Wyoming also has engineering and physics.

Edited December 22, 2017 by wapiti

[MarkT]

Coming from Alaska, UNM is going to be an easier trip, near major airport, than New Mexico Tech.

New Mexico Tech only 1.5 hours by I25 freeway from ABQ

they probably have some shuttle buses at the beginning/end of the semesters from the airport or Albuquerque

maybe Uber??  How much would that be?

worth looking into

 

many of the students there are from Albuquerque

 

=====================================================

When we visited NMT last October - the other family in our tour group (also from the Tucson area) did some research about New Mexico colleges.

They determined that for Computer Science (their major of interest) that UNM was behind both NMT and New Mexico State.

They did visit all three campuses.

 

 

[JanetC]

NMT is a small school that really does "punch above its weight" in terms of what their graduates accomplish. I was just commenting on what I think is a less than ideal location.

[frogger]

We're in Alaska too :-) If he is interested in electrical, you probably know there are programs at both UAAnchorage and UAFairbanks. Make sure the classes for the Performance Scholarship are in order, in case he needs one of those as a backup plan. They really are decent programs, but don't have the physics engineering or nuclear, of course. :-) The price is right though!

 

My daughter is electrical engineering, and ended up out of state. We did look at a lot of the WUE schools, but the cost was never quite low enough. UNM has great scholarships, and would be a nice place to go to school. We lived in Albuquerque for a couple of years, and I like it! I hope you find just what he needs.

 

 

Yes, Electrical is his third choice if he just can't make the others work and that would drop us into really good college deals price wise but he really would prefer the others so we are researching possibilities. He is prepped for APS and actually Fairbanks does give out some other scholarships so he does have a fall back. Perhaps if he did do Electrical he could also do a monor in Physics as mentioned above.

 

 

 

 

Don't know how to quote someone else now so I will just say.

 

The scholarships are one of the main reasons UNM is still in the running and they actually have Nuclear. They are also near the mountains if I'm correct which would be good for my Alaskan kid. My main concern is if he could keep his scholarship. UNM requires foreign language, diversity classes, and other humanity type classes that may kill his GPA.  My son is a very slow verbal processor when it is not stuff that is concrete and he understands very well. He can be a good technical writer but writing a paper on literature kills him. Foreign language would also really drain him. He will spend 3x as much time as a NT person and have a mediocre paper. He has the paperwork for accommodations but I only see that helping with essays on tests etc. More time for verbal heavy stuff isn't much help when you have a 10 page paper due by the end of the month and you also have all these other classes, not to mention speaking in class on said subjective material. Oy. So the scholarships may vanish into thin air. Testing on the ACT or SAT just requires he analyze sentences and understand grammar and thought processes which he can do well enough to get some scholarships but when it comes to coming up with all the words needed to write those essays or speak on something it becomes very painful. He does not have that problem with technical stuff as much. 

 

I will check further into New Mexico Tech also. Sometimes the Tech schools have less of those extra requirements. He enjoys music, history, literature etc. but we are also trying to be realistic about where his weaknesses are and they are much harder for him than a NT student so they may need to be things he studies on his own as a hobby.  Requiring classes that are way harder for him plus keeping that high GPA is what moved New Mexico down on the list and bumped up places like Missouri S&T. 

 

 

I'm not sure he has thought of just getting a Physics minor with the engineering major for places that don't have the Engineering Physics specialty or the Nuclear Engineering. That might open up more options. 

Edited December 23, 2017 by frogger

[GoodGrief]

Yes, Electrical is his third choice if he just can't make the others work and that would drop us into really good college deals price wise but he really would prefer the others so we are researching possibilities. He is prepped for APS and actually Fairbanks does give out some other scholarships so he does have a fall back. Perhaps if he did do Electrical he could also do a monor in Physics as mentioned above.

 

 

 

 

Don't know how to quote someone else now so I will just say.

 

The scholarships are one of the main reasons UNM is still in the running and they actually have Nuclear. They are also near the mountains if I'm correct which would be good for my Alaskan kid. My main concern is if he could keep his scholarship. UNM requires foreign language, diversity classes, and other humanity type classes that may kill his GPA.  My son is a very slow verbal processor when it is not stuff that is concrete and he understands very well. He can be a good technical writer but writing a paper on literature kills him. Foreign language would also really drain him. He will spend 3x as much time as a NT person and have a mediocre paper. He has the paperwork for accommodations but I only see that helping with essays on tests etc. More time for verbal heavy stuff isn't much help when you have a 10 page paper due by the end of the month and you also have all these other classes, not to mention speaking in class on said subjective material. Oy. So the scholarships may vanish into thin air. Testing on the ACT or SAT just requires he analyze sentences and understand grammar and thought processes which he can do well enough to get some scholarships but when it comes to coming up with all the words needed to write those essays or speak on something it becomes very painful. He does not have that problem with technical stuff as much. 

 

Yep, there are mountains there. The west side of the mountains, where Albuquerque sits, is sunny and dry, great for mountain biking, hiking. The east side is where the snow and skiing happens. The sun is terrific.

 

I suspect UNM is going to be pretty good at managing any needed accommodations.

[Corraleno]

The scholarships are one of the main reasons UNM is still in the running and they actually have Nuclear. They are also near the mountains if I'm correct which would be good for my Alaskan kid. My main concern is if he could keep his scholarship. UNM requires foreign language, diversity classes, and other humanity type classes that may kill his GPA.  My son is a very slow verbal processor when it is not stuff that is concrete and he understands very well. He can be a good technical writer but writing a paper on literature kills him. Foreign language would also really drain him. He will spend 3x as much time as a NT person and have a mediocre paper. He has the paperwork for accommodations but I only see that helping with essays on tests etc. More time for verbal heavy stuff isn't much help when you have a 10 page paper due by the end of the month and you also have all these other classes, not to mention speaking in class on said subjective material. Oy. So the scholarships may vanish into thin air. Testing on the ACT or SAT just requires he analyze sentences and understand grammar and thought processes which he can do well enough to get some scholarships but when it comes to coming up with all the words needed to write those essays or speak on something it becomes very painful. He does not have that problem with technical stuff as much.

 

I wouldn't let the Gen Ed requirements at UNM put you off if it's otherwise a good academic and financial fit. For one thing, they accept a lot of CLEPs, so that is one way to get out of taking the actual classes. Many people have passed the Sociology and Psychology CLEPs with just a few weeks of study using the REA prep books, and that would cover the social science req.'s. Also there are social science courses dealing with environmental issues as well as courses in both social science and history that "count double" by fulfilling the 1-course diversity requirements as well. And the foreign language requirement is only a single intro-level course, so depending on what language he is doing for HS, he could either CLEP out of the language requirement (e.g. only need a 45 out of 80 on the Spanish CLEP to get credit for Spanish 101) or just take the 101 class in that language pass/fail.

 

Here's a list of the actual courses that can fulfill the Gen Ed Requirements, and here's a list of the CLEPs they accept and what courses they equate to.

[JanetC]

There is a list of colleges with strong programs for LDs here. Click on the college name to go directly to the academic support program home page

 

https://www.collegetransitions.com/colleges-for-students-with-learning-disabilities

[luuknam]

And the foreign language requirement is only a single intro-level course, 

 

 

In which case you could probably delay it till spring of senior year, if you're concerned about it taking up too much time and dragging down his GPA causing him to lose a scholarship. Obvious downsides are that if he's done a language in high school, there'd be a big gap, and, that spring of senior year might not be the time he'd want to be spending a lot of energy on a foreign language, but rather on trying to secure a job or who-knows-what, but, at least at the schools I've attended, there are no rules on *when* you have to take your gen ed courses. 

[MarkT]

We live in Alaska. We have looked through WUE schools which is all the Western State schools that have an agreement. There are a few such as the University of New Mexico, one in Oregon, etc. but honestly it's not 1-1 exchange it's 1.5x resident tuition and it turns out to be a similar cost to Missouri S&T or Ohio State when all is said and done and we account for likely potential scholarships. He is only a Junior so we have a little while before we will know much definitly.

 

He is most interested in a physics engineering major, a second to that would be nuclear engineering, and then electrical engineering.

 

We were looking closely at New Mexico and it may be in the running depending on scholarship availability.

FYI always look for ABET accreditation

 

for New Mexico colleges

NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY

Las Cruces NM, US

ENGINEERING PHYSICS, BSEP

Accredited, 10/01/2005-Present

Accredited Locations:

Main Campus

Date of Next Comprehensive Review:

2018-2019

Accredited By:

Engineering Accreditation Commission

Criteria:

Engineering, Engineering Physics & Engineering Science Engineering

[frogger]

I can't just like your post Mark, but yes we are doing that for the engineering part. Thanks you.

[Guest2]

I don't know if this would work but to parlay in the ideas above; perhaps he could get a degree using CLEP credits etc. and a degree competeion bachelors ,then apply as a graduate student. Maybe this would work persuing a second bachelor degree? I'm not sure if that works for engineering though.

 

One option I've looked into is to take a dual credit class at a small private college. The one I'm thinking of is LeTourneau. and If a DC student passes with a C he she will be eligible for dual credit scholarship which makes it tuition much more reasonable at $12,000 a year. I don't know a lot about the school , i am just wondering aloud if there are other small private engineering achools with a similar poicy. Still wouldn't make a student independent for finacial aid purposes , though.