I think it would be a hard sell to say the student is "in-state" if they graduated from an out-of-state high school just three months earlier.

We briefly looked into this for Eldest, and it was actually the parent's residence that mattered. Could vary from school to school. That end definitely will need to be explored when we tour specific schools.

As far as "gaming the system," we all do that every day. Don't need to go any further than the way people manipulate their income, investments and expenses to minimize taxes. Since you are on this board you probably take advantage of certain tax qualified education investments. If you both want to teach your kids to pay more than they have to by ignoring legal advantages, I would view that as not teaching your children properly. We pay property taxes and I will be a legal resident and pay state income taxes. We also won't qualify for aid most likely, and will have to foot 100% of the bill, so yes, we are looking at ways to minimize that bill. Legally. That is a skill worth passing on.

IP