With a budget of $20k, the NPCs should be your best friend. If your family is not willing and able to pay the estimated price, eliminate it, unless the school offers merit aid. If it does offer merit aid, then check to see if it offers sufficiently large enough awards. Because essentially you’ll be looking for a place where you can go to school tuition-free, as room & board plus books at a lot of schools will bring you up to $20k. And don’t just look for schools that “meet need.” Some schools are for more generous than others in determining need. There are many examples of a school that only meets 80% of need that give a better net price than a school that meets 100% of need (I’m not talking Harvard, but others that are not in the USNWR top 10 or so).
One school I’d take a look at is Dickinson, in Pennsylvania. It has a very strong academic reputation, is known for international relations and languages, and it has some of the lowest net prices that I’ve seen, indicating that it’s probably giving a pretty generous definition of need.
Thinking outside the box a bit, I’d look a good look at schools in Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, and Washington. Why? They all have Senate Foreign Relations Committee members who were (re)elected in 2022, which means they’re likely to keep that committee assignment through your time in college. You could also look at the membership of the Intelligence, Commerce, Science & Transportation, or Armed Services committees as other examples. So, you could be battling it out with all the other D.C. students for internships. Or you can get cozy with the Senators’ offices in their home states and get summer positions in D.C. (and many colleges offer a semester in D.C. as well).
These are schools in those states that have good numbers of majors in international relations-type fields, which I used as a proxy for the strength of the department. These are also schools where you may get sufficient need-based aid (at Johns Hopkins) or where I think you’d be competitive for big merit aid, possibly full tuition or even a full ride. Also, if you’re getting to know your professors well, a lot of times they have connections that can put you in desirable places. At a larger school there will be more competition for those networking opportunities, but you definitely seem like a go-getter. But, those opportunities might be even easier to get at a smaller school, or one where you are a big fish in a smaller pond (i.e. one of the most impressive students on the campus rather than just another fish in the sea/pond).
Florida: Marco Rubio
- Flagler
- Florida State – I think you’d be competitive for an out-of-state waiver here, which would bring your costs down to about $17k/year
- Rollins
- U. of Central Florida
- U. of Miami – this is one of the “higher” ranking schools that is more generous with full tuition scholarships
Indiana: Todd Young
IU is such an awesome school and it probably is the best in Indiana for international relations that I didn’t look at any others since you’d already get free tuition here.
Kentucky: Rand Paul
- Centre
- U. of Kentucky
Maryland: Chris Van Hollen
- Goucher
- Johns Hopkins
- Salisbury
- Towson
- Washington
Note that students at Baltimore-area universities can cross-register for classes at the other schools. Participating schools include Goucher, Johns Hopkins, and Towson.
Wisconsin: Ron Johnson
- Beloit
- Marquette