My D attends a selective liberal arts college and this semester she is studying in South America through an outfit called SIT. If she had signed up for this program directly through SIT her room and board would have been $4000, but because she signed up through the study abroad office at her home college they are charging us the home college fee of $8000. We pay the fine American college eight grand to feed and house our D and the college pays the contractor four grand and pockets the change. Whadaya think about that?
BTW, EAP = education abroad program…
As it is only one semester, what happens to her empty bed/room while away?
This is the way it works. She pays the regular fees for her college, and is guaranteed the credits.
If she had arranged everything herself, it could have been a lot less expensive, but there would have been no guarantee that any of her credits would be accepted.
I’m guessing this information was available before you and your daughter signed on the dotted line.
I will say it is not all so clear when you are signing up. My daughter went to a program through her school and I was told over and over that it was just like going to school on campus. Same professors, same course numbers, can use her FA and even get more FA for the study abroad program. We paid the deposit to the school. Okay. Then January came and we had to pay the outside organizer and the school gave us most of her FA as a rebate 3 days before it was due to the study abroad program.
Now we get a 1098 from the home school saying there was no tuition charged even though she got 12 credits through the school. The program says there is no tuition so will not be issuing a 1098. The school study abroad coordinator says of course there is tuition but it was paid to the program and not to the school. so it isn’t on the school’s 1098. No one claims to pay the professors. The university okays the FA as full time (12 credits).
It is what it is.
Elite privates all seem to want to charge the home rate. Meanwhile at UIUC, some study-abroad programs cost less than in-state costs and GTech charges in-state rates for study-abroad programs. FSU gives in-state tuition for the remaining 3 years if you go abroad in one of their international programs freshman year.
@PurpleTitan FSU FYA (First Year Abroad) is a pretty good deal for OOS students, but seems to be a relatively poor value for in-state. Both in-state and OOS pay the same rate (~$40K for Fall, Spring, and Summer terms; rates vary slightly between the different locations). For in-state students, that’s around $10K more than 3 semesters on campus. For OOS students, that’s a savings for ~$8K for 3 semesters in addition to getting in-state tuition the remainder of their undergraduate time at FSU.
@shortnuke: Yep, that’s right.