Help me check out my budget to determine if CCC is worth it for me?-International

College Search & Selection Community Colleges
1

I’m still deciding whether or not going to school in the USA would be worth it for me and I will need your help just to check if the budget I have in mind is realistic. California seems to have the most developed CC to university route so that’s probably the place where I would go to. School in USA wouldn’t be worth it for me if the cost of attending CC is above $25k a year, that would mean that i can’t afford to transfer afterward if that’s the case. I would be about $10k short of affording a full 4 year bachelor’s in that case.

So here’s a budget that i want you to check out and tell me whether it’s realistic or not. I’m using SMC as an example school. I wanna get the Electrical engineering pre reqs and IGETC done at CC.

International tuition: $335×30 = $10050 a year for 2 years
Shared room: $550×9 = $4950 a year for 2 years
Food and hygiene: $200×9 = $1800 a year for 2 years
Used books $1000 a year for 2 years
insurance: $1500 a year
Cell phone plan: $45×12 = $540 a year

That adds up to $19840 for 1 year of CC.

Now, how realistic is this budget? I would have to live really thrifty. Is there something I have forgot of?

2

Is the housing at a community college dorm? Otherwise you will likely have to sign and pay for a 12 month lease (not 9), and pay for utilities and cable TV type expenses. If not on campus you will have transportation expenses (bus, train). Do you have funds for traveling back and forth to your home country? Just some questions to consider. I do not know anything about cc to uni in California so can’t comment on that.

3

@treschicos Housing wont be in a community college dorm. I looked around on some Facebook pages and Craigslist and I found people looking for roommates at the cost of $550 a month. It would really suck to sign a 12 month lease and pay for the 3 months when I’m home. I found that if you are a student at SMC you apparently get to ride the Big blue bus for free. Yes, I have money reserved for travels between USA and my home country in Europe.