Whoever decided education should cost money is an evil bastard. No. Not evil. Evile. A slimy, smarmy, evile bastard. Seriously, do they not understand I am poor? Okay, not that poor, but at the moment I have zilch income, $270 in the bank, $126 in wallet, and shan't be job hunting until after graduation because I don't do my work as is. Having a job would just take away the time in which I do the little work I do. Okay, so I wouldn't be paying for university out of pocket, but what's in my fund will cover only tuition for the three years if I get into one of the two I really want to go to. R&B would still have to be out of pocket, so to speak, and absolutely out of pocket if I went with the private sector. The one upside to the two schools I really want to go to is it would be much cheaper to go to them as an international student than to a school here as an in-state student or an out-of-stater at the schools I've been looking at in New England. One of those two schools has the added upside of: Tuition fees do not change for international students, so I could complete my three years of study as an international student and maintain residency after graduation. Okay, so it wouldn't be much cheaper, but cheaper. A year of tuition as an in-state student would be about $17500-something at the school where my friend goes. A year of tuition as an undergraduate international student at Dream School A would be $15602, and Dream School B would be $14401. Dream School B is the one where fees would not change over the tenure of my study. There are different residency halls at each of the DSs, but we'll start with B because I have their thingy open right now. Going for the cheapest option on each.
Dream School B:
Residency Hall I - $184/wk or $9568/yr
Residency Hall II - $172/wk or $8944/yr
Residency Hall III - $105/wk or $5460/yr
Residency Hall IV - $141/wk or $7332/yr
Residency Hall V - $156/wk or $8112/yr
Residency Hall VI - $152/wk or $7904/yr
Residency Hall VII - $158/wk or $8216/yr
Residency Hall VIII - $188/wk or $9776/yr
Residency Hall IX - $127/wk or $6604/yr
Now I'm assuming these are cost per person and not cost amongst mates, because the average number of students seems to be 4-8 and $105/wk between 8 people seems egregiously small. Granted these numbers still aren't too bad. Even if we take the largest of them, that's $24177 per year. Where my friend goes is one of the cheaper in-state schools (sad, I know). Where my sister went for a year before flunking out was around that much per year. But that is still expensive! And one has to remember to would be moving costs! Obviously I wouldn't bring everything over straight away and even later on I'd leave some stuff behind and buy on-site, but there are still things I'd need to bring and even if I could bring them all on a plane (which I probably could), planes are expensive, man. Fortunately some of these are suites, which is what I'd be striving for ideally. The cheapest suite with single-rooms is the $6604 one.
Dream School A has several halls but all of the halls have the same types of rooms. The first option would be a suite shared by a minimum of 8 people, the most last and expensive would be a single-person flat. Going across the chart the costs would be:
Option I - $143/wk or $7436/yr
Option II - $128/wk or $6656/yr
Option III - $112/wk or $5824/yr
Option IV - $90/wk or $4680/yr
Option V - $75/wk or $3900/yr (specifically marked as per person on chart)
Option VI - $128/wk or $1536/yr (specifically marked as per room on chart)
Option VII - $225/wk or $11700/yr
Ultimately it would probably be cheaper to end up renting a place for myself. Dream School B is even nice and offers guides to help prospective students go househunting and such. They also have "unihomes" which are just houses owned by the university they rent out to students, and the biggest pitfall to a unihome would be it's only for during the school year, so I'd have to fly back to the States ever summer(!!! expensive!!!!) or find somewhere to shack up over the summer(!!!! not easy!!!!!). So we're just going to rule out the unihomes immediately, shall we? And when it comes to both DSs, there is the option of the private sector. But! the trouble with the private sector is, everyone I know is either already in university or out of university, and even if that were a non-issue, they're almost all in the north! Thus, any place I find would have to be funded solely by myself, at least at first, until I found a friend who was willing to split costs. These are probably on the more expensive end of things but a quick gander at places for rent in the same city as DSB shows $829/month for a studio (cheapest option - remember I am poor!) and a quick gander at places for rent in same city as DSA shows $483/month for a studio (again, cheapest option). I lack the income for this kind of monies, and sure I'll be getting a job to save up money over the next year or two to help cover these costs, but let's assume I make minimum wage -- $7.25/hr. Let's say I pull a $40hr week, just to be kinder on myself. Sure, that's $2030 in a week or $105560 in a year, but some of that has to go towards other costs. And let's bear in mind I probably won't be pulling a 40 hour week, and most important of all, I would need to find a job once I'm over there to be able to pay for my residency.
Of course this becomes a non-issue if I don't get in, but I'm going to keep trying to get in every year until I've finished university here, and more importantly, it's smart to save up the money now and not need it than get in and be all HOLYSHITICANTAFFORDYOU.
Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh ugh ughity ugh ugh. It's times like these I wish we were communists and everything were free.
Dream School A
Dream School B
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Holy cow, DSA all the way! Ok, so maybe I'm a little bias.. Although in DSA's favour the, cost of living is pretty darn reasonable there... can't speak for DSB having never taken up a home there.
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, that's a total bummer that it costs that much...I'm with you all the way on making Education free but I don't think the Universities are quite of that frame of mind :~(
I can't really offer much advice since I stayed in Scotland specifically because I just couldn't afford anywhere else (not to rub salt in a positively gushing wound but the scottish government = awesome when it comes to fees, and oddly enough not communist. You see, they pay them for me with the proviso I stay within Scottish soil... when studying, not all the time...that would be harsh.. sadly folks from across the atlantic aren't eligible for support even if ya did come to merry scotland ...cause I just checked) but I hope you find a way to get what you want.
Um *hugs* it'll get better, I'm sure... Ooooh I just noticed your word count bar has gone up to 14k, good going on that :~)
I do have a couple of Scottish universities as overseas backups. Almost primaries because I spend so much time in Scotland over holidays and the bulk of my friends are there and all, but at the end of the day I really want to get into UEA, for reasons that should be obvious, and in all honesty I know nothing about Brighton's humanities program but they offer a literature degree and I like Brighton, so three years of studying in Brighton sounds like a good deal to me.
ReplyDeleteAnd honestly I'd be okay with universities costing money if they weren't so damned expensive. Actually to be a UK resident for Brighton is only like £3000 per year in tuition or $4497 which I would totally be okay with, but I don't know if I can switch to resident costs after a year of living in Brighton as an international, or if one has to be a citizen to apply for UK costs.
I figure I'm doing at least a year of community college while I save money, because UEA or UB might accept credits from over here. And if not, community college is cheap. You pay on a class by class basis and the most expensive classes are lab classes, which cost like $850 per class. Classes like English and math and stuff are way cheaper. So I could cover community college out of pocket.
Also the bar isn't actually at 14k. The widget cheats. I have 13563 words but it's still nice progress.