Financial
After a student overcomes the process of finding the information and fulfilling the application requirements, the student has to face economic challenges. The student has to be able to show to the university and to the American government that they are able to afford at least one year of education. This would include Tuition and fees, health insurance, and room and board. Despite the economic barriers that an international student has to face, there are still some kinds of help such as financial aid, scholarships, and loans.
Total Cost
Tuition and fees
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The USNews stated that "the average cost of tuition and fees for the 2019–2020 school year was $41,426 at private colleges, $11,260 for state residents at public colleges and $27,120 for out-of-state students at state schools".​​
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The Community College Review stated that "for public community colleges, the average tuition is approximately $4,816 per year for in-state students and $8,581 for out-of-state students."​
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The website LiberaArtsColleges.com stated that "some private colleges advertise tuition in excess of $60,000 per year" and that "the average annual cost of tuition at a liberal arts college is approximately $24,000."
Room and board
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An important factor that determines the price of room and board is whether the student decides to live on-campus or off-campus.
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The average cost for room and board is $8,060 a year at community colleges, $10,440 at public colleges, and $11,890 at private institutions.
*Also, international students have to pay an average of $1,800 per year in a required health insurance dictated by the college*
Scholarships
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There are many scholarships out there available for college students in the United States. Nevertheless, most of them are for American citizens or for students with permanent resident status in the country.
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International students have a more limited amount of scholarships from American entities, but it is highly recommended for them to look for scholarships and/or sponsorship in their home countries first.
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Governments sometimes offer scholarships for people wanting to study abroad (usually with the condition of coming back and work for the country for a specific amount of time after graduating).
Scholarship search engines
There are websites with tools that help find scholarships under specific criteria, some of them are:
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types of Financial aid
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It is more expensive for universities to give financial aid to international students because they are not eligible for federal financial aid, therefore, the investment would have to be completely paid by the university.
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The two biggest types of financial aid are need-blind and need-aware.
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Need-blind is the concept used when the application process does not take into consideration the student's ability to pay.
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At this moment, there five colleges in the United States that are need-blind. They are Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Amherst, and Yale, five of the most competitive schools in the world.
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Need-aware is the concept used when the student's ability to pay is not a requirement but it may be a factor in some of the decisions.
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Even though need-aware financial aid is still something that just the wealthier universities and colleges can provide, many colleges have it. Some of them are University of Chicago, University of Richmond, Skidmore College, and Colgate University.
Loans
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The first option for international students is to look for loans in their home countries, that will always be the best option because the interest rates will be lower than if they get a private international loan.
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The second option is to get a loan from an American bank, this option is more expensive than the last one but still a good alternative. The biggest issue with this option is that most international students do not have an American cosigner (American citizen or permanent resident) and this makes them ineligible for the loan. Some examples of this are loans from banks such as Wells Fargo or UW Credit Union.
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The third option and probably the most expensive one is private international loans. Some of them, like the loans from American banks, require an American co-signer. Some others, that are specialized in international students, do not need an American cosigner or sometimes do not need a cosigner at all. This kind of loan has the highest interest rates. An example of this is MPower loans.