Normally if you are a full time student you are not designated as a resident of California and thus are not required to change over your driver's license, registration or insurance.

However your New York insurance company may not want to continue to insure your car since it will be garaged and driven in California a majority of the year. f your NYS insurance company does not want to continue your coverage since the car is out of state for most of the year then you may need to register and insure your vehicle in California since New York requires motor vehicles that are registered in that state to be insured by a NY insurance company.

If you prefer to keep your NYS license, registration and insurance then check with the NYS DMV to see if that is possible. If it is not possible to keep them in NY while attending school out of state then contact the California DMV to see what steps to take to change over your driver's license and car registration. It may be possible to keep your NYS driver's license and only change the car registration over to CA, their Department of Motor Vehicles will tell you for certain.

Your graduate school's student affairs office may be able to give you more advice on this situation since they likely deal with it on a regular basis with undergraduate and graduate students coming in from out of state.

If you want to comparison shop to see how much California insurance will cost you compare to New York start here with us by getting auto insurance quotes online.