Retirement and the QTR

If you have dependent children who are or will be attending the University of Arizona, you will be pleased to know that the reduced tuition benefit still applies after you retire.

Well, it applies if you worked for at least 5 years before you retired and if you are 50 years old or older.

It applies for you, your spouse, and your dependent child.

A dependent child is one who is less than 30 years old and whom you can claim as a dependent on your federal income tax.

If you made it through all those hoops, here is a peek at tuition fees as of Fall, 2010. These are for a full load (12+ units of classes) for a semester. I checked these for an Engineering undergraduate as well as an Eller School of Business undergraduate.

Non-Resident	$12,905
Resident	$4,725
QTR (dependent) $1,332
QTR (self)	 $343

The James E Rogers College of Law has a different structure:

Non-resident	$19,701
Resident	$11,770
QTR (dependent) $3,181
QTR (self)	 $343
As you can see, if you can get admitted and want to attend law school after you retire, you will get an amazing bargain.

Getting into the College of Law is non-trivial though. You must first have some kind of bachelors degree, you must take the LSAT exam and have a competetive score, as well as submit letters of recommendation and your own personal statement.

Only 150 students are admitted each year! At any time there are no more than about 500 students attending the College of Law (with a faculty of 32), so you can anticipate that admission is very competetive. You can only attend as a full time student (I asked, and this is not negotiable and is mandated by the Arizona Bar). If you ask nicely, some professors might allow you to sit in on a class, but given the socratic method used at law school, this could be traumatic if you expected to just sit back and listen.


Feedback? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's Info / tom@mmto.org