The Residency Determination Service (RDS) is the centralized service for determining residency for students. Residency determination establishes if students should have in-state or out-of-state tuition. The state of North Carolina partially subsidizes the cost of North Carolina public college and university tuition for residents of North Carolina. RDS has to be done to get in-state tuition and state grants.
Failing to complete RDS, or completely RDS incorrectly, will likely deem a student as an out-of-state resident, therefore, making them ineligible for in-state tuition. For many colleges and universities, the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition is thousands of dollars!