How long after i marry my fiance can she attend a University here?

[DaveLovesDasha 0]

How long after i marry my fiance can she attend a University here in the USA?

[bigdog 376]

She can attend as soon as she wants, they will want documentation (AZ) of legal entry and charge you a hefty out of state IE; new tuition fee. They wanted $ 1,000 in AZ, The admissions person said no one pays and just leaves, I guess that back fired on them.

[DaveLovesDasha 0]

She can attend as soon as she wants, they will want documentation (AZ) of legal entry and charge you a hefty out of state IE; new tuition fee. They wanted $ 1,000 in AZ, The admissions person said no one pays and just leaves, I guess that back fired on them.

I Wonder if after a year she would be considered a resident of my state? I know thats the rule for citizens but not sure in this case.

[Soapz 14]

Usually you need to live 6 months at your address and be able to prove it (utility bills or something similar) to be considered in-state resident. You definitely need to check with the school though.

[Anh map 2,098]

For most 4 year institution she will need her green card to enroll.

[J and S 38]

Usually you need to live 6 months at your address and be able to prove it (utility bills or something similar) to be considered in-state resident. You definitely need to check with the school though.

That may be true in some states, but in most states and universities it is required that a person resides in the state for 1 year before they no longer have to pay the "Out of State fees"

[szemek 12]

Every state is different! For that matter, every university is different.

Most colleges have an admissions office for international students, which would include permanent residents (green card holders). You will most likely have to start paying out of state tuition, which is very expensive! It is three times more expensive than in-state tuition where I live!

Email admissions at the university and ask what their residency requirements are. I asked, and they said they count anyone married to a resident to be a resident as well! Nice! If you're not so lucky, check out if maybe they offer in-state tuition for part-time students. At the university near me, if you take 6 credit hours of less, they are charged at in-state fees. You will have to email or visit the admissions office and figure it out for your school. They should be very helpful.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

How long after i marry my fiance can she attend a University here in the USA?

My wife began her Master's program 5 days after her arrival and 3 days BEFORE we got married.

The K-1 does not restrict education in any way. She is free to attaend ANY school or university. The school will probably ask for proof of "legal presence" and some states have restrictions on her being classified as a "resident" for the purpose of reduced tuition, others waive the restriction if she shows she moved here for other than education purposes.

Alla started a Master's program 5 days after arrival with a 50% private scholarship. Everything was arranged before she arrived, she only had to show up, show proof of legal presence and give a SSN. She applied for her SSN 16 hours after her arrival and had the number the next day.

Our son, a K-2, began 8th grade the second day after arrival

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

That may be true in some states, but in most states and universities it is required that a person resides in the state for 1 year before they no longer have to pay the "Out of State fees"

These things are regulated by states and also by individual schools. Trying to guess at this here is simply ridiculous as there are probably as many different situations as there are schools.

The short answer is that the K-1 does not restrict education. Check with your local schools to find out about anything else. The OP did not indicate a question about costs. Many schools, states waive the residency requirement if you moved there for purposes other than education, again, check the school.

More important is that a foreign student needs many things to even qualify to begin school and it takes MONTHS to get these in place and NONE have anything to do with immigration. If you do nothing before they arrive it will be months hacking through all this before they can sit in a classroom.

Get the person's transcripts of their previous education, ALL of it. Get them translated if needed, get them evaluated by a US Evaluation service (we used "ECE") The student, if their foreign education was in a language other than English, will have to take the TOEFL and/or GRE exams for anything above community college level education. Again, this is dictated by the school, what they require, what they require for entrance. Think of these exams as the "SAT for foreign students" because that is what it is. Find out where they can take these exams in their country, study for the exams and take them. These are not easy exams. For her practicum II Alla taught one of these classes just to prepare for the TOEFL, it was an 8 week $6000 course! These courses are available in most countries for varying costs of course, usually much cheaper than here.

Apply for private scholarships. Unless you have bags of money laying around, your fiancee is not going to be able to work and is going to be incurring a lot of education bills. If you have bags of money, great! If not, how are you paying for this? Check out financing and available scholarships and grants, there are a LOT of them. She will nto be eleigible for Federal Student Loans or Federal grants until she has a green card, but again, this is funding, NOT education. PRIVATE grants have their own restrictions, check them out.

Filling out college applications takes a lot of time, researching degree programs takes a lot of time. Start now. Guess who is going to be doing this?

If anyone wonders why I NEVER bothered to check on the status of our case as it progressed...this would be it.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

For most 4 year institution she will need her green card to enroll.

Actually I looked at many schools and never found this to be the case. I was looking into a Master's programs as Alla already had a bachelors and foreign master's. Of course I cannot rule it out, but every school I checked required only proof of legal presence. Most foreign students do not have green cards. Most of them have a student visa which is specifically for the purpose of education. Many people think that they "need" a student visa to attend school, this is not true.

Again, this is not an immigration issue but a school/state issue and it is difficult to put an answer on that part of it.

As far as the original question "How long after I marry can my fiancee attend school"? Um...even before you marry

PS after you marry she is no longer your fiancee

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

I Wonder if after a year she would be considered a resident of my state? I know thats the rule for citizens but not sure in this case.

States only regulate STATE schools with these rules. The rules for University of Vermont would not apply to Champlain College for example. Champlain College is a private school. They can make whatever rules they want

Many states waive the residency requirement if the student did not move there for education, some do not. Vermont does not. This is exactly the situation we ran into.

Both the University of Vermont and St Michaels College offered similar programs for English teaching master's degrees. St Micheals actually had the better program, more highly respected (they have a very highly regarded linguistics program and are one of the top schools to train foreign students to teach English) But much more expensive, like DOUBLE.

However, they also had private scholarships/grants available which UVM did not have and no residency requirement for lower tuition. (there was no "lower tuition") So we applied for a grant/scholarhsip and Alla received a 50% grant. This made her education equal in price to a state resident at UVM and it was available immediately on her arrival, AND considered a better program! No brainer!

All of this took MONTHS to arrange. I actually did a lot of it before we filed the petition and all during the process. I know I started the education oddesy in January and we did not file the petition until mid-March. We got the education, enrollment and funding in place the day before I left for our visa interview in August! Alla and our oldest son, Sergey, went to classes in Ukraine for the TOEFL exam and took the exam in Ukraine just about the time we had our NOA2. Our youngest son has now taken the TOEFL here. He will have the option of using either his SAT or his TOEFL scores for entry into universities here.

This actually took considerably longer than petitioning and receive a K-1 visa and it was more difficult, confusing, frustrating than any part of the immigration process. People think I am joking when I say "the visa is the easy part"

The best situation would, of course, be if you just have a big bag of cash, send some applications and be done with it, write a check for a year's tuition and be happy.

[Anh map 2,098]

Actually I looked at many schools and never found this to be the case. I was looking into a Master's programs as Alla already had a bachelors and foreign master's. Of course I cannot rule it out, but every school I checked required only proof of legal presence. Most foreign students do not have green cards. Most of them have a student visa which is specifically for the purpose of education. Many people think that they "need" a student visa to attend school, this is not true.

Again, this is not an immigration issue but a school/state issue and it is difficult to put an answer on that part of it.

As far as the original question "How long after I marry can my fiancee attend school"? Um...even before you marry

PS after you marry she is no longer your fiancee

In the situation that the OP describes, the legal presence that a university will likely want to see is likely the green card as the fiancee/spouse did not enter with a student visa.

[baron555 934]

How long after i marry my fiance can she attend a University here in the USA?

ASAP, actually she probably only needs the SSN and not to be married.

[Nixhound 14]

That may be true in some states, but in most states and universities it is required that a person resides in the state for 1 year before they no longer have to pay the "Out of State fees"

Even more confusing is that some states like my state (Maryland) have exemptions to this rule. If are married and your spouse has lived in MD for over a year then you can get in-state tuition rates immediately. You just need to prove your marriage and send in a couple of your spouses utility bills.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Nixhound

[J and S 38]

These things are regulated by states and also by individual schools. Trying to guess at this here is simply ridiculous as there are probably as many different situations as there are schools.

The short answer is that the K-1 does not restrict education. Check with your local schools to find out about anything else. The OP did not indicate a question about costs. Many schools, states waive the residency requirement if you moved there for purposes other than education, again, check the school.

More important is that a foreign student needs many things to even qualify to begin school and it takes MONTHS to get these in place and NONE have anything to do with immigration. If you do nothing before they arrive it will be months hacking through all this before they can sit in a classroom.

Get the person's transcripts of their previous education, ALL of it. Get them translated if needed, get them evaluated by a US Evaluation service (we used "ECE") The student, if their foreign education was in a language other than English, will have to take the TOEFL and/or GRE exams for anything above community college level education. Again, this is dictated by the school, what they require, what they require for entrance. Think of these exams as the "SAT for foreign students" because that is what it is. Find out where they can take these exams in their country, study for the exams and take them. These are not easy exams. For her practicum II Alla taught one of these classes just to prepare for the TOEFL, it was an 8 week $6000 course! These courses are available in most countries for varying costs of course, usually much cheaper than here.

Apply for private scholarships. Unless you have bags of money laying around, your fiancee is not going to be able to work and is going to be incurring a lot of education bills. If you have bags of money, great! If not, how are you paying for this? Check out financing and available scholarships and grants, there are a LOT of them. She will nto be eleigible for Federal Student Loans or Federal grants until she has a green card, but again, this is funding, NOT education. PRIVATE grants have their own restrictions, check them out.

Filling out college applications takes a lot of time, researching degree programs takes a lot of time. Start now. Guess who is going to be doing this?

If anyone wonders why I NEVER bothered to check on the status of our case as it progressed...this would be it.

I NEVER said that education is restricted. I was talking about the FEES. I am not so far out of college, and did plenty of research in going out of state for my education. I had looked into 7 different out of state colleges from my residence. YES they were public universities. YES all of them required 1 year of out of state residence fees.

I'm trying to find out where in my post I implied that a K-1 visa holder is restricted from enrolling in a school? Please show me where in that one sentence I said any of that.

And my post was in reply to another post, as I quoted it. Not a reply to the OP. Kind of like how you replied to my reply.

Edited December 14, 2011 by J and S