How did you pay tuition for an out of state school that was expensive?

Question

My sister is from Michigan and she is trying to go to Tennesse State University but the cost for one school year is 28,000 and she only received 8,000 dollars of financial aid. How can she pay for the rest? her parents don't really have good credit. Can she take out loans in her name? Or can she get other free money to go? What is the best that she can do or should she stay in Michigan?

Answer 1

Attending an expensive out of state school is considered a luxury by the federal government and as you see, your sister isn't going to get extra money for her choice.  She won't be able to get additional student loans without a cosigner and doing so is a rip-off anyway.  She's paying five times more that the person sitting next to her because she choose to leave her state, not because she's getting a better education.  She should stay in michigan.

Answer 2

Honestly? Stay in Michigan. No matter how much your sister wants to go to a school in Tennessee, there is no possible way to justify paying out of state tuition for a run-of-the-mill state university when that decision is going to have her paying private school-type costs.

There is a common misconception that it is a simple matter to relocate and declare yourself a state resident. Even here, you'll see answers that insist that all you have to do is get a drivers' license, or show some utility bills, or go to school for a year, and then you automatically qualify as a state resident.

None of those things are true.

To establish tuition residency in a new state, you must be completely financially independent of your parents, you must move to the state for some purpose other than to attend college, you must have the present intent to make that new state your permanent residence, and you must be gainfully employed and pay state taxes.

The business about getting a driver's license and showing utility bills speaks only to the question of whether you seem to intend to make the new state your permanent residence, and those actions do nothing to satisfy the other conditions for establishing residency.

You can not move to another state for the purpose of attending college and thereby obtain state residency and/or qualify for in-state tuition. Think about that for a minute - if that weren't the case, why would anyone ever pay out-of-state tuition?

There are excellent public universities in Michigan - if I were your sister, I would seriously focus her attention there. You will not find any special forms of financial aid that were created to help students attend their "dream" out-of-state school. Out of state attendance is a luxury option for students who can afford to pay the premium.

I hope that helped - good luck to you and to your sister.

Answer 3

I'm gonna have to agree with NotAnyoneyouknow. He/She pretty much said it all....I know that you want to know what options are available, but $28,000 is a lot to pay for TSU. It's an OK school, but I have to say that it is not worth that much money. That's even too much for MTSU. She could go to a private school for that kind of money. The best thing for her would be to stay in Michigan. If I were her, I would start off at a community college to take the basic classes, then after 2 years transfer to a University that is in Michigan. I don't know much about MI, but I'm sure there are some good schools there.