Iowa residency for an Illinois high school Junior?

Question

My sister is a high school junior with a 4.0 grade point average on the border of Illinois and Iowa. My wife and I live in Waterloo, IA near UNI. My sister is interested in looking into going to UNI so she could have the option of staying with us.

However, we're unsure regarding the issue of residency. The base tuition for a nonresident at UNI is almost 4 times the tuition of a resident. She has relatives that live in towns in Iowa within a reasonable driving distance of her IL school; is there any way she could try to establish residency with them, yet still take her senior year of high school in IL?

I'd like to see what our options are regarding residency--if she were to take a year off after high school graduation, come and live & work in IA and not go to school, and then apply for admission, would she then be considered an IA resident?

Other than that, any other suggestions? She may very well be eligible for scholarships too, I'm not sure how that factors in either

Answer 1

I would first and foremost contact UNI to see what their requirements are for residency. Every school is different, and I know where I go, which is on the border of Ohio and Michigan, they have different tuition for students that are within 50 miles of ohio. Since your daughter has excellent grades, there is also a possibility that if you are charged a non-residency fee, they will waive it as part of a scholarship.