So I'm accumulating more CA properties and OOS.However, here's the trick: if you want to purchase in Bay Area, there're still some cash-flowing market in bay area.

However, if I stayed at the school I'm at right now, I wouldn't have any debt and graduate a semester early due to my credits accumulated from high school.So as of right now, I'm considering these two options:a) Continue commuting to college (maybe major in finance to gain the essential knowledge that will help me in REI?

Even after 5 years of paying in money, the policy usually has less accumulated than you paid in.

My long-term goal currently is to buy and hold but like I said I am still just getting my feet wet and trying to absorb as much as possible.A problem I keep running across when thinking of how i will begin investing is that when I finish grad school in the next few months, I will need to start paying back some of my student loan debt i've accumulated.

The monthly payment and the accumulated equity. 

When you need NEW cash for each property, it takes time to accumulate.  

It might be that you need to adjust and restructure to stay under the radar and accumulate assets and cash in ways that minimize your tax exposure until a more favorable political climate comes about.

However we have apartments there - enough to pay for professional on-site management - and we got the capital to do that after decades of slowly accumulating in California.If you only have enough capital to get a duplex or something like that out in the mid-west it could be tough to manage it from California.I will tell you this brother - there will be another crash in California.

I have the resources accumulated from RE investing that I do not worry one iota about cash flow if the total return meets my criteria.Here is the reality about cash flow: initial cash flow has a poor correlation to actual cash flow over a long hold. 

I'm hoping to accumulate a couple more properties and then find an investor friendly bank that will mortgage my properties (individually or as a bundle).