Since high school, I’ve known that I want to study abroad at some point in college. I always hear tons of people saying they regretted not studying in another country – I don’t want to be one of those people. I knew I needed to take steps to make this happen. That’s a big deal, because it’s easy to look at program guides and cool pictures of New Zealand, but never actually accomplish anything. Actions are more important than words. So just a few weeks into being a college freshman, I talked to my academic advisor.
Without a doubt, my main concern is cost. I’m funding my education with federal student loans and I’m not a fan of the “college should be fun so I’ll borrow as much money as I feel like and worry about it later” mentality. I chose not to live on campus mainly because I wasn’t in love with the idea of borrowing another 8 stacks to live 30 minutes from home.
I wanted to investigate what leaving home would actually cost me, using good estimates and not pie in the sky numbers. Since it’d be impossible for me to keep track of all this in my head, I used my mad Excel skillz and built up a spreadsheet. Below are the results:
I’ve made educated estimates (I think…) of the yearly cost for different scenarios. For a semester abroad, I used half of what a year abroad would cost plus what I would pay to finish school back in the U.S.
It’s obvious that study abroad is by far the most expensive option. There’s no getting around that fact.
However, there’s more to consider than just the dollar amount. I estimate I’ll spend $25,327 studying abroad. That’s a ton of money – but remember, I was going to spend $11,720 anyway. My actual increase in cost is $13,607 – still a lot to tack onto my student loans, but this cost represents 9 months of international travel. Another thing that surprised is me is how much living on campus costs. Studying abroad for 9 months is only $7,000 more. Not spare change, but most people would agree that $7,000 to leave home and live abroad for almost a year is a good deal. I also didn’t account for any scholarships I may receive that are only available to those studying abroad.
The other thing that stuck out is how most of the costs can be controlled – by me – with better spending habits. I ate at my school’s dining hall everyday last quarter because my classes started before lunch and didn’t end until late afternoon. This quarter, I’ll be in by 9 and out by noon. I’ll be saving hundreds of dollars because of this small tweak. My personal expense estimates were based on what the study abroad provider said they’d be – I can probably find ways to be more frugal and not buy so much stuff.
No one could ever say studying abroad comes cheap, but the cost could surprise you – in a good way.
What would you spend to study abroad?
If you have, was it worth it? What did you spend?
Am I being dumb and forgetting something really obvious?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Instead of study abroad, I went traveling one summer, and shortly after leaving school. Travel is well worth that kind of money (I spent about $11k for 5 months of travel, and about 5k for another 2.5 months over a summer). Traveling for school or work is quite different from traveling with no commitments. My summer trip involved a work visa in Ireland, and so I stayed in one place, had a routine, and didn’t see as much as I could have (even if I’d spent basically the same amount of money). It has its benefits – I loved Galway, and got a much more in depth experience of the place than someone just passing through – but I also feel like I still have to go back to Ireland because I’ve only seen a tiny piece of it.
Taking the 5 months to just go was also well worth it. In those five months, I went to 11 countries (between 4 and 30 days per country), and got a much greater sense of freedom. Five months with no responsibilities is definitely more fun than just a few months in a foreign locale. Still both are worthwhile. My wife and I are currently debating whether to do a 3 week course in Granada, Spain next summer. We’ll see how that goes. I figure it’ll cost $5k just for her to go, and another $3k if I want to join her. That’s a lot of money for 3 weeks.
Your budget looks reasonable. It seems odd that the year-long local travel cost is half the one-semester cost. Local travel actually looks a little low, but that depends a lot on where you go. On the flip side, airfare looks really high, unless you’re going to New Zealand (and I’d go so far as to say that spending a lot of money to live in another developed, english-speaking country is probably not worth it. Ireland was okay for working, but there’s so many more options for school programs) or plan on making a trip home halfway through.
Neil, your comment was awesome! Loads of good info.
Local travel was hard for me to estimate, but for the semester, I added up half the year abroad amount plus half of what I spend on gas. I’m expecting to spend more on local travel – I have a friend who lives in Germany and it’d be stupid not to take a quick flight or train ride over to see him, but I haven’t researched that cost yet.
You’re right about airfare, I estimated high. I’ve found flights to Prague for about $700. However, if I go for a year, I’m probably going to want to come home for Christmas so in that case, I estimated low!