I sort of forgot about the whole idea of paying for grad school. Now I’m left with a very slim chance of actually going to grad school next year because my parents aren’t paying for it, and I totally forgot about the fact that out-of-state tuition costs more than twice as much as for Washington residents.
So grad school might have to wait a year. I might move to Seattle, get a really cheap place to live, and work there for a year, making money and establishing residency. That way, school will easily be affordable.
The only problems are, will they let me defer my enrollment for an entire year, and will I still be interested in grad school after (hopefully) a year of work?
edit: I talked with my parents and we put some other ideas on the table. We all think it’s a good idea for me to move to Seattle to establish residency, but we were thinking that I wouldn’t defer my enrollment – rather, I’d start as a part-time student.
The deal is, establishing residency requires that I don’t take more than 6 credits a quarter. But fortunately, I have some undergraduate classes that I need to get out of the way before I can start my graduate-division classes… so maybe I can do a few of those during the year that I’m just living in Seattle, working.
Things aren’t looking too down – but I think the shock from having to pay for this entire thing myself hasn’t really settled in yet.
Put a post on the UW community, too.
Yeah, that’s a good reason to wait.
My easy answer is to get hitched. Really- you are considered by FAFSA to be financially dependent on your parents until you’re 25 no matter what. That is, unless you’re married in which case you’re automatically independent and your aid is determined by the combined income of you and your spouse. There’s always divorce, you know.
That really would cut down on the price even further, wouldn’t it… heh. It is a good thing to keep in mind, so thanks.
You can get interest-free loans because you’re still in school, can’t you?
Yeah… but that still means paying back in full. I’m thinking I might be able to be a part-time student and still establish residency, so when I am full-time, I can pay at resident rate out of my own pocket.
You might want to double-check where you found your info on tuition – I think Computational Linguistics is an Educational Outreach fee-based degree. See http://www.compling.washington.edu/compling/admission/tuition.asp – it says residency doesn’t matter for tuition purposes in your program.
Oh, jeez. That changes everything.
Thanks a lot for the clarification.
hahahahahahaha!
(ps yay?)