The Texas legislature has passed law that would tough requirements to the state's student aid program. Now open to both community college and 4-year college students, the new program will only be open to students who attend 4-year schools. In addition, students must now also meet two of the following requirements.

• Graduate with the Distinguished Curriculum or International Baccalaureate.
• Graduate in the top third of a high school class.
• Achieve a college-ready score of 1590 on the SAT or a 23 on the ACT.
• Graduate from high school with a 3.0 GPA or the standardized equivalent.

It appears that Texas has taken steps to stretch the money in light of dire economic straits. While it may be necessary, it will leave out community college students who may not have the money to attend 4-yeat colleges even with the state grant. We will likely see more measures that will further constrict student aid across other states.

Nearly a 1,000 colleges are unable to access funds held in Wachovia Bank, reports the New York Times. Billions of dollars are held in a fund at the bank, which is closed to withdrawals due to Wachovia being bought out by Citigroup Wells Fargo. As a result, many colleges have no access to funds used for operational purposes around campus, like maintenance and repairs.

There have been fears that this could affect student financial aid. However, no schools have reported being unable to provide aid to students as of yet. We'll keep you posted if we hear otherwise. In the meantime, if dining hall food gets even worse, you'll know why.

We've gone through many ways of saving money when going to college on this blog, but haven't resorted to drastic methods. Now's the time to do that. Looking at the University of Michigan's tuition and fees, it costs an out-of-state student almost $45,000 a year to attend! That's Ivy League prices! The in-state costs comes out to be a little over $22,000 year. With some schools having a 60 percent discount for in-state students compared with out-of-state, there's a deal to be had.

All of this begs the question: should you move in-state to get the sweet in-state deals? If you can convince your parents to move just for your education, I applaud you. But for the most of you, that ain't gonna happen. More likely you will need to take a gap year between high school and college to qualify for residency. Here are some things you need to do if you want to pull this off on your own.