Information gathering: Tucson

[badgercat]

Why wouldn't you want to make it your official residence? I mean, you're going to be living there. With all kinds of budget cuts, I would not rely on promises of tuition remission year after year. Better to establish residency since you will be living there. Who knows if you'll end up staying; it doesn't matter. You need to have a permanent residence somewhere and where you live makes the most sense.

The catch-22 is that with those same budget cuts, the university is enforcing residency status with an iron fist to avoid losing that out-of-state tuition income. It's not a simple matter here to appeal your residency status and get switched over to 'in-state' in the eyes of the University, especially if you've had any financial support from your parents in the past two years. I've had friends here who did DL and vehicle registration, voter registration, etc, within a couple weeks of moving here, and intended to appeal after a year and were basically told not to bother putting together an application. I was told that if my parents hadn't moved here (because they had supported me financially when I was an undergrad and I went straight to grad school three months later, I still fell under that umbrella, despite no longer receiving significant funds from them), I would have been out of luck as well. So, I agree that it's worth it to have residency if you CAN, but it may be a lost cause depending on your personal situation. It'd probably be worth speaking to folks in the residency office to find out what your options are.

[Crankin]

It was hell for me to prove my AZ residency, even back in the 70's. My parents moved there as soon as I graduated HS. They supported me, and I was clearly a dependent, but when i wanted to transfer to ASU in my senior year (I stayed in FL where I graduated HS), my dad had a screaming fight with the residency people. I told them I didn't have a DL (not possible in the Internet age), when I had a FL one, but even with their tax returns, it was a battle. The issue is that besides the revenue stream from out of state students, if they gave everyone residency who wanted to move to AZ for the weather, there would be way too many students! Just getting a DL, registering to vote, etc. is not really a statement of residency for a student. What people were told to do is come out, work for a year, so the intent of your move does not look like you are doing it to just get in state tuition. Since, back then, you could take 6 credits a semester with no out of state tuition (as well as summer school), people would move, work, take a couple of classes and then go to school once their residency status became clear.

[Dogmama]

Another alternative - albeit difficult - is try to get hired on as a classified staff member at 20 hours/week with benefits. Then, all of your classes for one semester is $25. But, then there is that work thing that you'd have to do...