IMO, it’s not as simple as just thinking about state taxes. You need to also consider possible impact on whether or not you can declare the student as a minor, voting rights in each state and other considerations that come along with any benefits to getting in-state tuition.
If the college state has no state income tax, it might save some money if your home state requires paying taxes on income earned out of state. So check on that. It can vary from state to state. Typically, since most students only work part-time, the state tax burden isn’t huge anyway.
Hmmm…we are Washington state residents with no state income tax, and our daughter will attend college in NYC this fall. We did not intend to change her residency, and now we have another good reason not to change it. Thank you for the heads up!
If you don’t have enough name tags for the number of bags you will be taking on the plane bring some adhesive return address labels. You can quickly put them on the cardboard tags from the airline.
Our S has his wallet and phone stolen from the U gym just before the end of freshman year. He figured out what to do himself. He borrowed a phone and called us to advise us of the situation. We called the provider and advised them. He got one of our used phones to use until we were eligible for new phones. He arranged to replace the items that were in the wallet (except the cash).
Similarly when the kids had their laptops stop working/break, we and they worked with AmEx Costco to go thru the steps to have the warranty replacement and got full refunds that the kids were free to buy new machines with.
Mostly, they handled whatever came up. We did introduce them to MDs and get their med records delivered to their U so they could get any needed medical care.
DS1 was in his first semester of freshman year during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, and he came down with it. He Skyped with us when he wasn’t resting. His RA brought him meals from the dining hall, and his dorm mates (he lived in a single) got him a plush influenza virus. We hated being so far away, but it was touching to see the help and support he got.
Re: auto insurance - when my s’s has their cars in the state they attended college for more than half of the year, we had to change the insurance to that state even though the cars were still registered and titled in our state (had to go through some hoops to renew the tags when the car was not here for Inspections) . Anyway, when we had to change the insurance to their state, we lost the “family discount” with our insurance and their rates went up. Ugh.
This was with USAA. Check your insurer for rules.
The biggest “hiccup” was DS’s broken leg that occurred in CA (old timers may remember the saga). Had to get him back to his college after surgery he had in CA to have a titanium rod put in his leg) half way between where he was and where we live ( he was on one coast when he broke it; we live on the other). And we had to arrange possible room changes (he lived on a 3rd story walk up) get special handicapped resources for the dorm room, bathroom, etc; Arrange for a scooter chair thing with basket (like you see in supermarkets for customers) to get around campus, to doctors appointments, physical therapy, etc. it was an interesting time.
Find the atm machine closest to campus, then open an account with that same bank in your honetown. Many colleges also have a debit card system where you deposit money into the college account and the student can draw on it. It is even accepted at nearby stores.
@readthetealeaves, I plan to help my daughter set up an account with the bank on campus (Santander). Unfortunately, we don’t have any great overlap of banks in our rural area and NYC, her future college town. I want her to carry her debit and credit cards from our local credit union along with her new debit card. When I was in college, an ATM machine ate my card on a Saturday night, and I didn’t have a credit card or another ATM card, so I had no money access until the next Monday.
Many banks and credit unions have mobile apps for depositing and transferring money remotely. My daughter will need to give us access if she wants us to deposit monthly.
Is this so complicated? S has a checking account at a nationally known bank and there’s an atm affiliated with that bank two blocks from his dorm. He can use other atm’s as well and any user fees will be waved because of our balance at the bank. We will get him a credit card that makes him an authorized user on a card we already use. I think that’s covering it.
@readthetealeaves, our son’s bank account is linked to ours (with Chase), so we transfer money to him that way and also through Venmo, which he can use to pitch in for something with friends (note: unless you don’t mind the whole world seeing that you conducted a Venmo transaction, use the “private” setting).
We opened a joint CU account with each kid on campus. We didn’t actually have any problems getting money to kid—just gave them checks or cash or added funds to their university acct.
