$90,000, $100,000, 1 CR, 2 CR rupees are the big
numbers that come to our minds when we think about an education in the US and
I'm sure that your parents and relatives have all dismissed your idea of
pursuing your dream of studying in the US just by hearing these big numbers but
a student as smart as yourself shouldn't shy away from pursuing and chasing
their dreams.
So in today's article we're going to look at some
hacks cheap hacks that can help you potentially save thousands of dollars while
studying in the US now this doesn't include getting a 1,600 on your sat or
getting a 99% in your board exams.
Our
Affordability
So let's get started so the most important thing that
it comes down to is being realistic about your affordability if you know that
you and your family can afford a certain bracket of tuition fee your college
list should contain colleges that have a tuition fee within that range and this
is being realistic we don't want to apply to colleges that have a 90 or
$100,000 tuition fee because that's just not affordable for most of the
students so the first category we're going to explore are the Sunni colleges
this stands for State University of New York and these comprise of about 60
universities within the New York state which are public colleges that offer a
variety of Majors all the way from Premed Computer Science Biology business
whatever you can think of.
Sunni
Colleges Tuition Fee
Now most of the international students have not heard
of these Sunni colleges because they're not you know probably the top 50 or
they're not they don't have a fancy name tag but the one thing that they do
offer are affordable tuition fees to International students as well so within
the Sunni colleges my top three picks would be Sunni Buffalo Stony Brooke and
Sunni oo now on average the Sunni colleges have a tuition fee ranging somewhere
between 20 to $35,000 per year and these are very affordable and this price tag
is before any scholarship in financial aid most of these colleges offer good
amounts of Merit based scholarships to International students that you can
apply for at the time of your college application itself now I know that many
students will just dismiss the idea of Sunni colleges just because they don't
have a fancy brand value and in terms of affordability.
Cornell
University
Let's compare this to a big IV League such as Cornell
University today Cornell University's average tuition fee for an undergrad
student is roughly $65,000 per year before any scholarships or financial aid
and on top of that you can expect your living cost to go up to $25,000 per year
so combined you're looking at an overall expense of roughly 75 lakh rupees per
year that would go into your degree now if you're doing a four-year degree
multiply that by four if your degree is 2 years for your master's program
multiply that by two and this accounts to a very high price tag and I know many
students will think and say that there's the Tata scholarship that's available
and Cornell does offer financially which is completely true but remember that
Cornell is need aware which means that the minute you declare on your college
application that you need financial aid they will use that into factoring
whether they should even admit you or not and realistically each year only 10
to 15 students actually get awarded the Tata scholarships out of the thousands
that apply.
Student
Visa
So it's not possible for everyone to get into Cornell
with that scholarship that they're expecting now if there's one downside to the
Sunni colleges it is potentially running into Visa issues when you're trying to
secure your F1 student visa.
I've mentored students who have gotten into Sunni
colleges and gotten their student visas approved and I can say that as long as
you follow all of the right instructions that are mentioned on your I20 proof
of funds making sure you're communicating well with the VISA officer and
checking off all of the right boxes you shouldn't face any issues because at
the end of the day this these universities the colleges are under the New York
state so they are accredited universities that have a high value in the US.
Twoyear
programs
We are going to address community colleges in the US
now for those of you guys that don't know what these are community colleges
offer two year programs of an Associates level degree so you'll get an
associates of art or associates of science by the time you finish these two
year programs now typically the goal isn't to just get into a community college
and get that associates degree because honestly it doesn't carry too much value
in your career the point is you come to a community called College if you
haven't done so well in your high school maybe your grades are low you don't
have too many extracurricular activities you take an admission in the community
college come to the US.
4 Year
Degree Program
Build on your profile take some really good courses
where you're excelling in the credits and build on your overall profile in
terms of extracurricular and then apply for a transfer into a 4-year University
now the advantage of this is it's better than being a gap year student and two
when you're actually finishing your degree from that four-year University that
is the degree that you'll actually get and lastly the biggest advantage of all
of this is community colleges are extremely affordable so by finishing
completing the first year or the first two years in a community college you're
able to save on the big tuition fee that would otherwise be associated with a
4-year University degree now on average 30 to 40% of the students actually
transfer from a community college to a 4-year University. The process is very
straightforward there is an entire application portal for transfer students.
Cornell
Campus
You can potentially transfer to Cornell after your
first year or even work on some research with professors on the Cornell campus
being in the same area if we take a look at some statistics Cornell has the
highest transfer acceptance rate out of all eight IV leagues at 18.5% and in
2020 out of the 600 students that transferred to Cornell 150 of them came from
community colleges this just validates the fact that it's not too far out of
your reach to actually transfer from a community college into possibly an ivy
league and if not an Ivy League you can always aim for a broader list of
universities you know if that doesn't work out either so if you're planning on
taking this route some of the top community colleges I would suggest include
dianza City College of San Francisco Santa Barbara and Fresno City College in
California.
Community
Colleges
Now the downside to community colleges and this is
something that a lot of students have experienced is Visa office ERS do get
wrong intentions if you're coming to a community college because they are lower
ranked but if you fall within the age group of 18 to 19 years old you should be
fine because you are coming here as a student and you have all of your
documentation in place.
The third category we're going to look at is the outof
state tuition waver now this is a huge Advantage for international students
that many students take advantage of in the state of Texas what this allows
students to do is be eligible for institution fee so that they are no longer
paying the huge price tag of $50 to $60,000 per year and that gets down to the
$15 to $20,000 per year tuition fee Mark so getting these wavers is a huge task
so make sure you read the fine print of each individual University before
applying and knowing the eligibility for them but just for an example we're
going to take UT Austin now UD Austin clearly states that if you receive an
internal scholarship of even $11,000 from UT Austin you are then eligible for
the outof state tuition waver Now by doing this you can save at least $10,000
per year on tuition fee as an international student and some other colleges in
Texas that offer this outof state tuition behaviour to International students
include UT Arlington Texas A&M and many others.
Research
Activities
Now I know that affordability is a huge thing when it
comes to studying in the US but at the end of the day your GPA your overall
profile and the activities that you've done definitely play a role in which
university you get admitted into possibly even the type of Merit Scholarships
that you get so if you are working on your profile and you want to expand this
profile into getting involved with some research activities the research
bootcamp by Incognito blueprints is going to be the perfect fit for you so I'm
hosting a closed webinar to talk more about this research boot camp what's
going to be included what we're actually going to do with the students for 8
weeks what kind of Publications are included and the projects that you'll work
on so if you guys are interested you can sign up for the wait list and remember
this is going to be a closed webinar so it's not going to be live streamed on
YouTube or published online.
