This should make you laugh.
As you know, my son was accepted to both William & Mary and UVA but chose UVA. When we toured William & Mary, we looked into what would happen to tuition when we moved out of state. "Nothing," they said. "Just file a form to explain."
Okay. Great news!
When Joey selected UVA, we didn't think any more about the matter. The policy should be the same as at William & Mary, right? After all, UVA's tuition isn't too different from William & Mary's. Well, as it turns out, we've now learned that that's wrong. Very, very wrong. Tuition rises at UVA if we leave the state - from about $16,000 per year to about $46,000 per year. You see, UVA is a state institution while William & Mary is not. So UVA has discounts for Virginia families. Huge ones.
I'd be okay with that except that we've been here for a dozen years, paying taxes the whole time, and this is the first time we've used the college system. There's a tendency to feel like you're owed!
But, no. We're being held hostage by Virginia. If we leave, we're screwed to the tune of $30,000 next year, $60,000 if Joey does a full 4 years at the school, and still more in the event he decides to stay at UVA for his post-graduate studies.
Sending a kid off to college is not for the faint-of-heart... or faint-of-wallet either.
After much thought, what we've decided to do is to head down to Charlottesville next weekend with the intention of buying a condo near the university. It's too late for Joey to use it in the coming year. He has already signed the papers to stay in dorms. It'll be OUR place, whether we're in it or not. We can then spend time in either NH or VA as we see fit. We can also use it to store many of our belongings. As you know, our barn isn't done and our NH house is ready to burst at the seams. The space in Charlottesville will definitely come in handy.
In a year, our barn should be done. We'll haul the remaining boxes from the condo to the barn, and our son can then move into the condo.
When he's done with UVA, whether that's in two years or four years, we'll sell the condo - hopefully for something that's close to break even. If not, well, it would take a catastrophic fall in prices to counter the additional $30k per year the university was going to stick us with.
What I find funny is that I've had an empty house up North for thirteen years. Now that I'm finally ready to move into it, I have to buy a new place that will, again, frequently be EMPTY! Sometimes, you just can't win. 
Gold is $1,581/oz today. When it hits $2,000, it will be up 26.5%. Let's see how long that takes. - De 3/11/2013 - ANSWER: 7 Years, 5 Months
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