Do universities also offer scholarships/grants on Room & Board for undergraduate program ? It seems only Room & Board costs over 10K. Even if i get full scholarship on for the tuition, it will be difficult for my family to cover the Room & Board?
Approx how much can an average student make or save working on campus and during the winter break in one year?
International students won’t be able earn enough to meet the cost of room and board by working on campus. They are limited in the number of hours that they can work, and the places that they can work.
Some scholarships do cover room and board. If you need that kind of money, you need to make certain that the places you apply to offer enough aid to cover those costs.
Be aware that scholarships/grants that are used to pay for room and board are taxable income to the student.
Are you an international student?
Need based aid awarded based on family income and assets is based on the full cost of attendance at a college…and that includes room and board.
Merit awards are sometimes restricted to use for only tuition and fees. However, even some merit awards include room and board.
You need to check the policies for each college to which you are applying. If you are an international student…start with finding out if the colleges even award aid to international students as some don’t. And if you are an international student, i agree with @happymomof1 that it’s unlikely you can work enough here to pay room and board costs.
@BelknapPoint I never even thought about IRS income tax liability for an international student. Are you saying they would need to file a U.S. tax return?
@thumper1 yes i am an international student
As an international student, you will need to complete a verification of finances to receive a visa to study here. This needs to verify that you have the full funds to pay for college for at least one full year…all costs including tuition, fees, room, board, books, travel and personal expenses…the full cost of attendance.
The on hand funds you have can include already awarded financial aid, and already approved loans, as well as money your family might have for college costs. It cannot include money you haven’t earned yet…or plan to earn.
So…you need to find a college that will either give you sufficient aid to attend, or you will need to have the balance at the ready and be able to prove so…to get your visa here.
If you are accepted to a college that meets full need for international students, and you have significant need, it’s possible that your costs will be covered. Most of these colleges are highly competitive for admissions and even more competitive for international students.
Do you have the GPA and SAT or ACT score to be a competitive applicant for the competitive schools that meet full need?
Ok, I should have said “maybe.” The question of whether or not an international student must file a return and pay taxes on U.S. source income gets complicated very quickly. Short, lawyer-type answer: it depends.
This is interesting and I wonder what the answer is.
Doesn’t seem fair that an int’l student could get grants/merit for nonQEE and not have to pay taxes on it while domestic students would.
@mom2collegekids I would think that the answer regarding taxation of US source income for an international student depends in large part on the tax treaties that might be in place between the US and the country the student is fiscal resident of. Keep in mind that an international student could still be taxed on that income in his/her home country. Conceptually it is not that much different from how out of state students might be taxed by the state where they come from. Nothing unfair per se.
I think that this IRS presentation “Taxation of Scholarships and Fellowship Grants Paid to a Nonresident Alien” is a good read for those interested by the topic.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/int_practice_units/usbcuc_14_2_1_03.pdf
If I understand the examples correctly, the room and board part of the scholarship of a Japanese student studying in the US would typically be taxable in the US, but the room and board part of the scholarship of a Korean student would not (due to different tax treaties).
If I understand the presentation correctly, the university should only withhold a reduced 14% of the room and board part of the scholarship of a Japanese student. The student should then file a 1040NR(-EZ) to possibly reclaim some of the money.
By the way, I believe that the state in which the student study might still consider the room and board part of the scholarship taxable because typically tax treaties are signed between foreign countries and the US, and the individual states do not necessarily follow the same logic.
U.S. treaties with foreign governments have precedence over any state laws.
Part of the puzzle regarding a non-resident international student being subject to federal tax laws has to do with the visa type that the student holds.
That is not quite true when it comes to taxes.
“Some states of the United States do not honor the provisions of tax treaties.”
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/international-businesses/united-states-income-tax-treaties-a-to-z
It’s black letter law that federal law (this includes treaties to which the federal government is a party) trumps state law. See Article VI, paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution (also known as the Supremacy Clause). The fact that a state may “not honor the provisions of tax treaties” does not mean that this is a legally supportable position.
OK. Apparently some states work around the treaties by taking the position that tax treaties apply only to US federal income taxes. See
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=bcf25ebc-772c-4c72-b8b1-1e638ddb8fd4
https://www.ark.org/dfa-act896/index.php/api/document/download/20170217.pdf