Instate college tuition eligibility conversion for your kids and saving lot of money

If your kid is planning to go for an out-of-state college or currently studying in the out-of-state colleges, please find out if his/her college provides any option to establish residency after 12 months and be eligible for in-state tuition fees. Please note that out-of-state college fees are much more expensive than in-state fees. Currently, four year degree college costs around $200,000 to $250,000 for out of the state vs in-state which may cost around $100k.

I have outlined two options and the steps to get the in-state eligibility for University of Florida.. College Instate eligibility rules could vary from state to state. Please get the in-state eligibility details from the college admission office (sometimes they may not publish complete details on their website) that your kid is planning to study and come up with a strategy to save your money.

Option-I Move your family to Florida ( at least 12 months before your kid’s second year term starts) and claim your child as a dependent. This option may be very difficult for the parents due to your job employment situation.

Option-II: Claiming your kid as financially independent and making him or her eligible to get in-state fees from the second year.

We have to do the below action items to get the eligibility in the next 12 months and reclassify your kid from out of state to in state tuition status.

When you file IRS taxes during your kid’s first year of college, please do not declare your kid as dependent and request your kid to file their taxes as an independent and request your kid to file local state taxes along with the federal taxes.

If you own an LLC, you can run the payroll in the range of $20,000 to $25,000 and it will help your kid to meet 51% cost coverage requirement or they can work on other firms and earn around $20,000 to $25,000 per year. You have to submit the following documents to the college residency admin office for moving your kid from out-of-state to in-state eligibility before the second year term starts.

1. Kid’s 1040 tax form along with state taxes copy
2. W2
3. Payslip
4.Parents 1040 tax form
5. Drivers license / Voters registration/ utility bills / Vehicle registration from the state of florida

I recommend starting to work on these options while your kid is in Junior or Senior year. If you can successfully convert from out of the state to instate, you can save a lot of money (more than $60,000 to $70,000) over the next three years.

Most recently, I helped a student who is studying in the University of Pittsburgh and paying out-of-state tuition and you can find their college in-state eligibity rules using this link https://www.payments.pitt.edu/tuition-fees/pa-tuition-rate-eligibility. We had to fight all the way to the college appeal committee to get the in-state approval for her. Never give up and explore all the possibilities.