<p>^^^ If the home school provides services, it can justfiy the tuition. As you can tell from above posts, direct enrollment (without going through your home school) has its disadvantages in the form of no housing services or other support. </p>
<p>If the home school provides no support, housing help or a in-country coordinator specifically in charge of working with/for home school students – well, that IS a major rip off.</p>
<p>When a country has tuition-free college, does that apply to incoming students from other countries too? I always thought free college was paid for by citizens’ taxes. Why would students from other countries get to attend for free? I assumed sending colleges would forward a large chunk of the tuition they collect to cover their student at the host college.</p>
<p>If American students can just go to other countries and attend college for free, why aren’t we all sending our students abroad for 4 years? (Did I miss out on a great opportunity???)</p>
<p>I join the chorus of people that found that studying abroad was actually less expensive than studying in the US - the accomodations were arranged through BU, but were 4 to a room and quite decent. They were on their own for food, but DD was conservative and still spent less than a meal plan. </p>
<p>On another note, if your student is going with a group from the US, be aware that groups from the US who are under 21 can get pretty out of control in other countries. DD has been twice - once with BU, where a percentage of the students drank to unsafe levels regularly. The other trip was through Education First, which was a language school predominantly used by non-US students. NOONE drank to excess - they all came from countries where there was no drinking age, so it was simply not a big deal to them. If I were you, and the program has a lot of US students, I would have a chat about how it’s not the alcohol that is the issue, but the choices you make after you drink. This includes the choices those around you make - always have escape plans when behavior is unsafe, and don’t be stupid in foreign countries.</p>
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<p>They are pretty strict about how many students they let in, and I think in my D’s case she would have had trouble getting a long term visa to stay for four years. My D was able to make a good case because she had been studying Finnish before she went and had already spent a summer abroad there.</p>
<p>Sorry, Consolation. :)</p>
<p>German and French universities are basically tuition free but you must speak the language well (IB HL at least and well above AP, otherwise you need to take one year of “academic language preparation” for which you pay $4,000 or so for tuition + $5-10,000 for rent, food, books, transportation, etc.) There are no accomodation and it’s pretty much “go to the lecture, take notes, figure things out for the exam”. Ther emay not be a syllabus or you may not know when/how you’ll be evaluated.
OP: if you son’s university does not offer support and accomodations, see if he can take a semester off and enroll in another university’s study abroad program. I mentioned the ACM programs but there are many others which are run by colleges with good study abroad programs. You can also check out the CIEE programs
[CIEE?Nonprofit</a>, NGO leader in international education and exchange since 1947](<a href=“http://www.ciee.org/]CIEE?Nonprofit”>http://www.ciee.org/) , [ACM</a> ? Associated Colleges of the Midwest ? Home](<a href=“http://www.acm.edu/index.html]ACM”>Associated Colleges of the Midwest)
I don’t know if the ACS also offers such programs for non-affiliated students but it may be worth it to look into it.</p>
<p>Many countries charge international students higher tuition, we are one of few countries which do not do that.</p>
<p>Not all, though. I think a lot of the colleges that are tuition free (like U of Helsinki) do not charge foreign students, either. But they do restrict who can enroll from outside the country pretty tightly.</p>
<p>^^ I think Helsinki may be one of the few that doesn’t. Universities in Europe are slowly being weaned off public funds (this is particularly true in the UK and Ireland) and asked to be more ‘entrepreneurial’ along the American model. Hence the growth of English-language programs in public universities throughout Europe that attract other Europeans, Americans, Aussies, Latin Americans and Asians. Americans can study in Holland and attend medical school in Poland, for a lot less: tuition at those programs still costs, but often isn’t nearly as high as in American privates. There are of course drawbacks - visa issues, for one - and you lose out on name-recognition/career connections you’d enjoy at an American school.
But it IS an option for Americans.</p>
<p>I used to work in Holland and I"d recommend this program:
[Webster</a> University - Leiden Campus](<a href=“http://www.webster.nl/]Webster”>http://www.webster.nl/)</p>