May 11
Looking for a University in the United States: Cost of Living
We’ll start off our series of posts looking at how to identify U.S. universities by taking a peek at something that will have a huge impact on your years in the U.S.: cost of living.
If you take the same amount of money to New York, NY, and Fargo, ND, you’re going to have vastly different spending power. Why should this matter to you? Well, you’ll probably want to do things besides studying while you’re in the U.S.. You might want to, for example:
- go to an amusement park
- go out on the town
- take a date out to a restaurant
- see a movie
- hit the road and see some tourist attractions
All of these things will be more expensive in some cities than in others – meaning you’ll get to do them less often. For that reason, when you’re looking at a particular university, it’s a good idea to research the cost of living in that university’s home town.
There are a number of good resources on the internet to help you do just that. To start with, check out Forbes magazine’s list of America’s most overpriced cities. If a university is in one of these towns, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go there. It does mean you should plan on spending more . . . . in some cases, a lot more.
This nifty cost of living calculator allows you to compare two different cities. To use the above example, it turns out that, if you lived in Fargo and were contemplating a move to New York, you’d need to increase your salary by 136% in order to maintain your standard of living (i.e., if you make $50,000 now, you’d need $118,000 in Manhattan. Ouch).
Money magazine compiles a lot of different data into a list of the best places to live. Although this is intended for families (or at least for people who have already graduated), it’s still interesting to note that Fort Collins, CO (home of Colorado State University) is #2, where as Cambridge, MA (home of a few fairly well-known universities) doesn’t crack the top 100.
There are many other indexes, lists, and calculators available. Whichever one you use, the bottom line is this: the cost of living of the town in which a university is located will have a big impact on the kind of life you’ll live while studying there. For that reason, it’s important to do research on cost of living as you look into different Universities in the U.S.
For your consideration: You probably have a few universities you’re already interested in. What towns are they located in? What data can you find on the cost of living in those towns?
Posts in this Series
- Conclusion - How to Choose a U.S. University - 02 Jun
- Activities Around a University Campus - 01 Jun
- Check Out U.S. Universities on iTunes U - 26 May
- Extracurricular Activities - 25 May
- Get to Know Your Potential Professors - 21 May
- Don't Forget Your Life! - 20 May
- What Do You Want to See in the U.S.? - 19 May
- How Many International Students go to your Chosen University? - 18 May
- The Problem with University Rankings - 17 May
- Using Facebook to Research Universities - 14 May
- Look at the Surrounding Neighborhoods When Looking at a U.S. University - 13 May
- How Weather Should Factor Into Your Search for a U.S. University - 12 May
- Looking for a University in the United States: Cost of Living (This post)
- Looking for a University in the United States - 10 May
2 Responses to “Looking for a University in the United States: Cost of Living”
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Tags: cost of living, International students in the U.S., study in the United States, where can I find cost of living data, which U.S. universities have the highest cost of living
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:48 am
Nate,
Cost of living is definitely a big issue. Another big issue is debt load (whether a student is taking the money from family, a bank or other source). There is a new study by Mark Kantrowitz (Publisher of FinAid.org and FastWeb.com) out that breaks down some of the debt issues. The study is focused on US domestic students but some of the information might be relevant to international students as well. The link is below.
Page 7 of the report is interesting as it breaks down specific fields of study likely to graduate with higher debt loads. It seems to me that this list could also be interpreted as a way to determine the cost of education versus short term earnings potential for specific subjects. Not terribly surprising is that degrees in areas such as social work are relatively expensive to get in comparison with how much a graduate generally earns upon graduation.
http://www.finaid.org/educators/20090511excessivedebt.pdf
May 24th, 2009 at 3:14 am
Thanks, Michael. This is certainly another important thing for students to consider. If you as a student are going to take loans to finance a U.S. education – or any other education, for that matter – you definitely need to think about whether your future career will provide enough salary to cover the cast of both living and debt repayment.