Dickinson in PA and especially for International Relations. I see you have Dennison on your list and Dickinson is similar in terms of ranking, size and location. When we visited the campus we met several students who were looking to pursue careers in foreign service, peace corps were mentioned. For a female, liberal soccer player who is interested in International Relations, Dickinson seems like a good fit. It also is one of the greenest campuses with a big focus on the environment if that is of importance to your daughter.
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Any IR / Public Health / Public Policy career is going to require a Masters after a few years of work- all of which are overpriced, even with fellowships. A clear goal should be to have no more debt than she can pay off before signing up for grad school debt.
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Take a look at these University of Amsterdam programs, all offered entirely in English:
Politics/Psychology/Law/Economics (PPLE) https://www.uva.nl/en/programmes/bachelors/politics-psychology-law-and-economics/curriculum/curriculum-overview.html#anker-the-first-year
Liberal Arts & Sciences (aka Amsterdam University College [AUC], a deliberate effort to copy the US model):
Political Science:
COA for non-nationals is ~$30K/pa- but it is only 3 years, so $90K all in with no loans. On her student visa (which the school will help organize) she can work up to 16 hours/week during term (full time during holidays) @ ~$12/hour, so if she worked ~10hrs/wk x 7 months (allowing for holidays / exams / student life / etc), she could knock another ~$4K/pa or ~$12K off, so now down to $78K total.
For her areas of interest, summer internships are really, really important, so if she can get a summer internship that washes its face, that is worth not banking as much in the way of summer earnings.
UofA has some financial aid- not a lot, but worth looking into
If she also does FAFSA loans (UofA is eligible), that would bring out of pocket down from $78K to ~$50K, which leaves enough change from your goal of $60K to cover long haul flights for her- and probably enough for you to go visit her as well…
That gets her:
- a genuinely iR experience & course work
- living in a large city, in a mid-sized school
- a liberal environment that is not SJW- Dutch liberalness is very calm, because it is largely assumed, not busy trying to change people’s minds
Applications open Oct 1 (the website has not been updated for 2022 entry deadlines). It’s a wild card, but worth a serious look.
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thanks, we’ll take a look at Dickinson
I fully agree on the as little debt as possible approach. She will take the federal loans but our plan is to not have any loans apart from those.
Funny that you mention the UoA programs. I had not heard of that particular program but had started to research universities in Europe. My kids are dual citizens and have EU citizenship, so the UoA program would be pretty cheap for us. We had discussed college in Europe before but she ideally wanted the American college experience (university in my home country is pretty different from the US, especially when compared to a LAC) . The Amsterdam program sounds like the US experience though. Plus Amsterdam is an amazing city!
Indeed! UofA accepts nationality for local fee eligibility (doesn’t require residency, as Ireland & the UK do- yet!), so you would be at about $60K all-in for the whole degree- not counting loans or part-time work. Hard to beat that deal.
MAcalester is not too activist