Cutting College Costs: Marrying a Total Stranger
Dishonest students at the University of California, Berkeley have discovered a way to cut their yearly 
tuition by tens of thousands of dollars.
Some of them are getting married to total strangers.
The students, who are arranging these sham marriages, are peeved that they are stuck paying out-of-state tuition to attend UC Berkeley, according to a story in The Bay Citizen. The difference in tuition between Californians and everybody else is huge. This year Californians are paying $12,462 in tuition at UC Berkeley while outsiders pays $35,341.
When you include room and board, the UC tab exceeds $50,600 for non-Californians. These UC nonresidents are paying just $75 less than Harvard's sticker price!
Apparently these students assumed that once they arrived out here in California that they could simply become residents of this state and thus become entitled to cheaper tuition. They obtained California driver licenses, they registered to vote and found jobs. None of this, however, entitled them to in-state tuition.
So instead some UC Berkeley students got married, which satisfies the residency requirement.
Finding a Groom Through Facebook
The Bay Citizen interviewed a woman who married a female friend during the period when gay marriages in California were legal. Both of them are straight. Another student married a childhood friend, who brought along his real girlfriend. Another student found a groom through a post on Facebook.These students don't seem to have any qualms about ripping off the University of California. What they also don't appear to appreciate is that UC Berkeley admitted them because they were going to have to pay big bucks to attend. Because the UC system is experiencing a huge financial crisis, it is accepting more students outside of California to generate desperately needed money.
Here's another reason why the fake married couples should be ashamed of themselves: every time, UC Berkeley accepts a student from a place like Denver, Chicago, Mumbai and Beijing, that's one less spot available for the hundreds of thousands of deserving California teenagers who will never get to attend their dream school.
Bottom Line: If you can't afford to pay $50,000+ to attend UC Berkeley, UCLA or any the other UC campuses, please stay home!
Lynn O'Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution and she also writes for TheCollegeSolutionBlog.
UC Berkeley image by TheRealMichaelMoore. CC 2.0.