What does a college student need to do to establish residency in North Carolina?
Brandy Bryant  StarNews contributor  Q. I have a friend in college who wants to establish residency in North Carolina, because she will be continuing her education in North Carolina. In compliance with state law, in order to establish residency for the University of North Carolina Wilmington and Cape Fear Community College, students are require to request a residency classification from the Residency Determination Service (RDS). RDS is the entity responsible for all classifications of residency in North Carolina. For more information about residency and complete a determination, please visit https://ncresidency.cfnc.org/residencyInfo/ or contact RDS via email at rdsinfo@ncresidency.org or call 844-319-3640. Students also must complete this basic checklist:   The student must have the capacity to legally make North Carolina their permanent home and be currently residing in North Carolina.  The student must perform various actions to make North Carolina their permanent home for indefinite period of time. Examples are: registering your car, work history, filing N.C. taxes, registering to vote, obtaining an N.C. drivers license, etc. You will be asked to provide copies of these supporting documents with your application.  The student must have maintained a legal residence for at least 12 months prior to the submitting an application for residency classification.  Every applicant must make a statement as to his/her length of residency in the state. A 12-month qualifying period of maintaining a permanent residence rather than a temporary residence incident to enrollment is required to qualify as a resident for tuition purposes. Special rules and circumstances may affect the assessment of residence for the following students:  Minors  Married persons  Members of the armed forces  Aliens and refugees  Federal personnel  Prisoners  To establish residency for Cape Fear Community College, for in-state tuition purposes, students must meet the criteria established by North Carolina statute. Students interested in attending Cape Fear Community College who have questions or need assistance with the residency determination process should contact the admissions office at 910-362-7557, email admissions@cfcc.edu, or schedule a campus tour at https://cfcc.edu/campus-visits/. The college also offer assistance to students who are completing a residency reconsideration or an appeal (this occurs when someone is assigned the out-of-state tuition rate and believe they may qualify for an in-state determination). UNCW students seeking to establish or update their residency status are required to complete the process offered by RDS and to provide UNCW with the Residency Classification Number for their status. Students who do not have an RDS determination or who do not provide their RCN default to out-of-state status. Students with an expired residency status default to out-of-state and need to renew their status through RDS. The deadline to be changed to in-state residency status for an in-progress semester is set by the UNC System and published on the UNCW calendar. Students who receive a change in status with an RDS effective date after the UNC System deadline will have the in-state status take effect the following semester. Please refer to this calendar of events for upcoming change deadlines: https://uncw.edu/reg/calendars-events.html. For more information, contact 910-962-3125.