<p>My name is George Yoav Khasin. I am an international student from Israel.</p>
<p>I have a question concerning college costs for international students. </p>
<p>The average cost for one academic year in colleges around the US - including tuition, living expanses, entertainment etc.- is about $42,000. It is EXTREMELY expensive compared with other higher education institutions outside the US. </p>
<p>Additionally, in most - if not all- American colleges, international student are not eligible for need-based financial aid are rarely allowed more than 20 hours of on-campus jobs. needless to say, international students can not get any federal loans. </p>
<p>Also, merit based scholarships for international students can amount to a maximum of $10,000 year (you must be really lucky to get $10,000). That leaves international students with about $30,000 they need to pay all by themselves. </p>
<p>Yet, many international students apply to colleges around the US every year, many are accepted and many are enrolled. Do you want to tell me that every international student who applies to an American university has $30,000 in his or her pocket?</p>
<p>So my question is -I would like to know,- how do you pay for college? Could each of the international students in this forum post his financial sources? Please be as specific as you can and write where you are from.</p>
<p>My parents paid for my brother & I first year in college. Then I became a Canadian PR, although we school in the US. So, we’re on Canadian student loans at the moment.</p>
<p>“merit based scholarships for international students can amount to a maximum of $10,000 year”</p>
<p>Each college/university sets its own policy about need-based and merit-based financial aid for international students. Some don’t give any aid whatsoever. Others give several full-ride scholarships each year. If you need a lot of aid in order to study in the US, you will have to spend a lot of time looking for scholarship money. What you can’t do, is sit back and expect that someone else will do that research for you.</p>
<p>Well , I have in fact spent quite a lot of time researching financial aid for international students and I do not “expect that someone else” will do this research for me. I have a solid idea how to pay for my education, I was interested how OTHERS pay for their’s. There is no need to attack </p>
<p>But you are also right. More research is always good.</p>
<p>As for college’s policies on merit and need based scholarships for internationals, my conclusion from calling about 30 admission offices from the top 50 universities is that international students are eligible for full, need and merit based financial aid at Ivy-league-level schools, the top 20 liberal arts colleges, Brandeis University, University of Rochester and few more.</p>
<p>State universities from the top 100 - such as, Arizona State, Michigan state, Ohio State, Penn State, etc.- DO NOT have scholarships for international students that amount to more than $5000-10,000 per year.</p>
<p>If you know otherwise, please enlighten me </p>
<p>I do have one important question though - do you know if schools that provide need based for International students are also need-blind?</p>
<p>… the simple answer, GYKhasin, is that there are many rich people in the world. Which is one reason why American colleges really like International students who bring in lots of cash – and “diversity.”</p>
Usually not, with a few exceptions (Harvard, Princeton, MIT…). Almost everywhere else, applying for financial aid will put you into a separate very competitive applicant pool. </p>
<p>For example, a representative of Colby College wrote a few years ago that Colby has funding for ~10 new international students each year, and ~900 international applicants compete for these funds. Berea College, which promises a need-based full tuition scholarship to all of its students, had an international admission rate of 4% (compared to ~25% overall).</p>
<p>International students who can’t pay for college themselves probably stay away from most state universities (slim chance of anyone, in-state, out-of-state, or international receiving any money there!) Some governments finance their students who go overseas but I don’t know about any other than China.</p>
<p>In some countries, the government pays/helps. Saudi, for example, pays 100% tuition + $1,800/month for personal expenses. I know tons of international students from South America who came through some programs. The programs pay for everything. </p>
<p>Also, I got a freaking $120,000 merit scholarship from Hendrix College. So, the max is not $10,000. However, I got a better offer another college. So yeah, not all internationals pay everything from their pockets.</p>
<p>One of my siblings got over $10,000 in scholarship money. We’re from a Latin American country. At that same school, I was offered over $20,000. That so-called limit of 10k does not exist.</p>
<p>Btw, I chose not to go to that school because I got into UPenn, which meets 100% of a student’s financial need.</p>
<p>Unless you happen to either: be a top student or have parents that are upper middle class, going to university in the US is an iffy proposition.</p>
<p>i’m an international from Norway and here the State provide us with great loans… and thats basically how I finance it. You can get up too 42K in student loan and as long as you get your degree 40% of that becomes scholarship. Its interest free as long as you are in school (undergrad, grad, doctor) and the interest is really low when you are out of school.</p>
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