And also I’ve said “many many many” times that I’m not gonna borrow nor enroll in any school until I receive my green card. The price for a international student is well over 3 times that of in-state. No way I could afford it.
Thank you for the response though! Really appreciate it !
This guy has been working/earning in the US
So…continue earning and saving.
Why? Many if not most college students work while in college…maybe only 16 hours a week while in college and full time during summers, but that can bring in several thousand per year…and you need it.
What has been the living situation(s) for you and your wife??? Does she live with her parents??? Do you live with her or elsewhere?
I agree with what you are hearing from other posters. First of all the green card in the mail is no guarantee.
Second this is all very risky for your wife. You are asking her to live with her parents, work full time, take out expensive loans in her name for you, while you go off to college, live in a dorm and not work…?
Yea, no. If i were her mom/ sister/ best friend, etc I’d caution her.
Re: paying for your education. There is nothing that you can do until you have legal permission to reside in the US.
It would not be wise to make financial commitments until that is in your hands (not coming in the mail soon).
@gearmom what I could do is work part time and live with my wife’s parents. However I’d have to commute 1 hour there and back and I honestly don’t know if I have the energy nor the intelligence to work 16h and commute 12h a week. You think I should just go to Salem state?(5 min drive) but I haven’t heard anything from their CS department and they don’t even have an engineering degree. I think that’s my only option.
@HowardGradly Ive been studying immigration law since junior year of high school. On my case status it already says that it’s ready to be scheduled for interview and I KNOW I’ll be getting it soon… any visa overstays are forgiven once you apply for a marriages based green card
Once you have a green card, you will no longer be an international student paying 3x the instate tuition. You will have lived in Mass for many years, graduated from a Mass high school, married to a Mass resident. There are dozens of schools in the ‘north shore’ area.
What we are all saying is once you have the green card, you’ll have many choices, but one of them shouldn’t be borrowing private loans based on your wife’s $22k income. YOU will need a job. YOU made a choice to get married, and you have to support yourself and your family.
The USCIS will want proof of your marriage, not of your vacations. Rent or mortgage payments, health insurance, taxes, proof of daily living expenses. If you don’t live in the same place, that will be questioned. Why don’t you want to live with your wife?
Where have you been living since you got married? How have you been supporting yourselves…or have you?
If my lawyer says it will be fine… then that’s all that matters. And i worked as a manager for the same place I wiped tables, we lived by ourselves for 2 years after I finished my associates.
my lawyer also said that her co-signing my loan is gonna contribute to evidence of a bonafiide marriage
I’m really not worried at all about immigration. I’ve learned everything I need to learn… trust me. My only concerns were the loans… I’ll see if I can get it after I get my green card, if not I’ll just attend Salem state or UMass Boston.
Wait until you actually get the green card.
Don’t leave the US without permission until you get the green card. Don’t work under the table.
Live with your wife at her parents if possible to save money. Pay them back in non monetary ways by fixing up things around the house, yardwork etc.
Once you have the green card, get a job. Save money.
Once the time has passed to be considered an instate resident for tuition purposes, and you are accepted at a school, you and your wife can live together in the college town. She can work full-time and you can work on weekends and in the summer.
Read these instructions carefully. It says an emancipated person has to have lived in Massachusetts for 12 months while being a non-student, or be married to a Mass resident who has lived there for 12 months for non student purposes
https://www.uml.edu/docs/Residency%20Reclassification%20Work%20Sheet%20-%20April%202016_tcm18-236980.pdf
It is not simply “get married”, “get a green card”, “borrow loans”, and “finish degree”.
And once you get your green card, make sure you always notify them of your address changes.
@mommdc yes I’ve said many times that I’ll wait for the green card first before enrolling. And my wife has been a resident of mass for over 7 years.
While I can understand the desire to “beef up” your case, I doubt that a bank would consider your $22k income wife a qualified co-signer for much of a loan.
If you’re having tunnel vision and just thinking a cosigned loan is going to “seal the deal” for legal immigration, the long term situation is also important. You’re already going to be graduating with about $25k of federal student loans. That’s plenty.
Why don’t you attend a school you can afford? If that means attending part-time while you work to support yourself and your wife, then that’s a perfectly reasonable option. A lot of people do it.
http://main.abet.org/aps/Accreditedprogramsearch.aspx
This website shows that Salem State has a BS in computer science.
Instate tuition is about $11,000
If you and your wife live with her parents until you get your degree, that would save a lot of money, which could be saved up towards a down payment for a house.
Thank you all for the responses! I guess I’ll just go to Salem state once my GC arrives. But if I go there I’ll be double majoring in CS/Mathematics to “beef up” my resume since it has such a bad CS program.