 This is Hawaii. Beautiful, right? Sure would be a great place to study. I wonder how much it costs. All right, I got about $12,000. Okay, $34,000. Over here it says 15k. Here it says almost 30,000. Well, which is it? Hello, my people. My name is Meacham. Welcome to the Score Channel. Today we're talking about how much universities in the United States really cost for international students. Recently somebody asked me about studying in the University of Hawaii. She thought she was going to have to pay about $23,000 a year. She was wrong. Today we're going to explain how tuition fees at public universities in the United States work and how you as an international student or even someone living outside of the state might be able to get in-state tuition and get a good deal on a college education. But before we can even do that, we have to understand what in-state tuition is in the first place. Public universities in the United States receive funding from three primary sources, the federal government, their state government, and finally you. When you pay tuition, you are also funding the university. At the federal level, all American citizens and even some non-citizens can have access to federal funding in the form of Pell grants, which this year are worth up to $6,495 towards your costs for university. Those are available to everybody regardless of the university you're applying to. At the state level, though, things get a little more complicated. State governments give money directly to their universities in order to help bring down tuition costs for students. But the catch is that you have to be a resident of that state to get that discount. That's why it's called in-state tuition, sometimes also known as resident tuition. If you're not a resident of that state, then you'll have to pay the out-of-state tuition price, also called the non-resident tuition price. This is the rate that international students almost always pay. There's nothing more out-of-state than being from out of the country. To go back to our example of the University of Hawaii, if we take a look at their cost of attendance sheet from last year, we can see that the typical resident would pay about $23,000 a year. And that's where my former student got that idea. But she would never qualify for that. If we scroll down a bit, we can see that the non-resident price is about double the cost. So if you're an international student, it's going to cost you a lot more than Google says. You need to look for that non-resident price. But if you're a resident of another state or even another country, is there any way for you to get in-state tuition? Yes. The main requirement for in-state tuition is that you have resided in that state for at least one year before applying to the university. But here's our first hack. You, as the student, don't actually have to reside in the state. See, if you're under 25 years old at the time of your application, then your parent's status can be the one that's used to determine your in-state eligibility. If your parent has been living in that state for at least a year, then you can qualify if your parent pays for your education. This works for international students too. Let's say that you are trying to apply to university in California and you have a parent that lives and works in California. But you are from, say, Nigeria. Because your parent has residency in California, if they're paying for your education, they're going to get the discount. But what if, in this scenario, you don't want to study in California? Maybe you want to study in Idaho and you really love potatoes. Is there any way you can get in-state tuition if you reside in another state? Absolutely. And that brings us to our second hack, regional alliances. There are four major regional alliances in the United States where the states have agreed that if you reside in one of these states, you can go to university in any of the others and pay the in-state tuition rate or at least a rate that's very close to it. The Western undergraduate exchange lets students who live in any of these states apply to universities in the same state. And instead of paying the out-of-state tuition price, they only have to pay a much smaller fee for tuition. Go back to the University of Hawaii, for example. The Western undergraduate exchange price is only $5,652 more than what a resident would pay. That's over $16,000 less than what the out-of-state or non-resident would have to pay. Other similar alliances include the New England tuition break program, which covers six states. There's the Midwest Student Exchange program that covers eight states. And the Southern Regional Education Board covers all of these states. So even if you aren't a resident in the state where you want to study, if you have residency or your parent has residency in any of those other states in the alliance, you can get a great price on your university tuition. But what if you don't have a parent residing in the United States? What can you do? Can you get in-state tuition in your second year of studies? After all, you'll have lived there for a year. Unfortunately, no. In order to qualify, you have to be a resident. And in order to be a resident, you must have a resident visa. The F1 visa for students is not a resident visa. So even after one year of studies, you're not going to be eligible for in-state tuition. But there are a couple of exceptions. One way is to apply for a resident visa. If you get a resident visa while you're still in high school, you could finish high school in the United States or take a gap year in the US before you start college so that you qualify for in-state tuition. But getting a resident visa to the United States is difficult. It's not an option for everyone. But there's another much easier method. You can look for universities that give international students the in-state tuition price. Yes, these exist. For example, Eastern Michigan University in 2018 announced that they would give all students from any country the in-state tuition price, which today is about $28,000 a year, including housing. There's other universities like this too. Cost is the number one barrier for people who want to study in the United States, but it doesn't have to be. I'll see you next week.