Getting your Masters degree for $300 a Term
Education Costs: US vs Europe
Let me introduce myself: I am a 45 year old mom who has two children in college, one child about to start college in three years, and another somewhat foster daughter whom I somewhat financially and emotionally act as a pseudomom.
My children were smart, and got pretty good grades in high school. They weren't straight A students, but they had about between a 3.2 and 3.5 GPA and were able to take some honors classes. I am not poor, my husband and I make about 85,000 a year before taxes. My husband is self employed as a jazz musician, and I'm in IT. We also support my mom 90% financially, so although we aren't poor, it's not like we have a lot of extra money. Make that we have NO extra money. However, I have always felt that NOT having a college education or a specialized trade is not an option with my daughters. I have always made it a goal to make sure that my children will get at least their Masters and I have always made it my goal to also make sure they graduate with no debt.
With that in mind - come with me to my newly found Happy Place!
A little history: until 9/11 and the Enron and the airline and dot com debacle, we had most of our children's education paid for. Through loss of investments, that was all wiped out. I angsted for a LONG time after that, then said, whatever, move on. So. Looking at other options. My kids weren't "gifted" enough either scholastically or athletically to get scholarships. We weren't poor enough to get grants. So, loans and a public university it was.
So, now I am about 60,000 in debt including PLUS loans and Stafford loans. My oldest daughter is studying graphic design/illustration, (she is REALLY talented), and has another year to go because she changed her major after the first year. My other daughter is going into her senior year in business management. My pseudo-foster daughter is going into her senior year in business finance.
They all have between a 3.2 - 3.5 GPA. So it's a year away and helicopter parent that I am, I have started helping them research grad schools. OMG. The costs for the good schools! And financial aid has just been withering away and the pool of students that are vying for what is left is just getting bigger.
So my younger daughter started dating this nice young French man, and we started having this conversation about higher education a month ago. He was all like, oh, it only costs 180 euros for the finest schools in Lyon, and I was like, oh, it starts at 10,000 - 12,000 here. Wish we lived in Europe. Oh, no no no, he says, she can go to study in Lyon for 200 euros. I say, she's American, it's gotta be more - like with out of state tuition. And I'm doing it all with loans. No no no, he says, it's the same.
So I start googling, just out of curiosity. OMG. This is what I found out.
Education in Europe and overseas, for most countries, is highly subsidized by their governments. In most cases, American students pay the SAME costs that overseas students pay. There are 485 overseas universities that work within the student loan system including FAFSA. As far as I can see, they all accept an American undergraduate degree in order to start a graduate degree, although there may be placement or other exams that are needed as well. Health care costs are paid by the governments until the students are 25, and are subsidized after that (generally speaking). The cost of living is roughly the same as it is here in the states. (Paris and London similar to New York, Lyon similar to Seattle, etc) Grad degrees earned overseas are accepted here in United States. In a lot of schools, you don't even need to speak the language - because the classes are taught in English.
So, after several weeks of exploring our options, we realize that it will be MUCH cheaper to have the kids earn their Masters overseas rather than here. Isn't that sad? Again, this whole idea of, we are the best country in the world, kinda fails when it comes to higher education.
Tentatively, my business management daughter is looking at Lyon, my finance management pseudo daughter is looking at the UK, and my design daughter is looking at the Netherlands, Denmark, or Sweden. My son, who will be graduating in two years and wants to go into a music major, we are looking at enrolling him directly into a 4-year university overseas - there are 32 to choose from, the costs being 1000.00 a year for tuition as compared to 8000.00 a year here. The housing costs are much cheaper, again some subsidized for students. Again, in most cases, the tuition costs for resident students are exactly the same as for foreign students.
Please note - I am NOT talking about Study Abroad Programs - these are very expensive and available by going through an American University. I am not going to say they are a ripoff, they serve their purpose, but they are usually a lot of money, and that money is not going to the foreign university, but to the home university. I have worked with some foreign student exchange programs here in the US, and it is my personal opinion that someone is making a lot of money off of these, and it isn't the host families. Having been a host parent and finding out what the exchange student was paying was just jaw dropping. Host parents do it for free. I am also speaking of public universities, not the prestigious private universities.
NOTE: As many in the diary have pointed out, UK schools do have much higher tuition fees for international students, so I wanted to point that out. Comparison wise, they seem to be on the whole still less expensive, but not as inexpensive as other EU schools.
Links:
FAFSA included Overseas Schools
Select "Foreign Country" as the State in the drop down menu.
Finding a Master's Program in Europe.
Council for International Exchange of Scholars
For students inquiring about France Higher Education