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Comment by jillesvangurp | Hacker News Reader

There's a simple and effective escape hatch: study abroad. Europe, Australia, South America, Canada even. Some countries are more affordable than others but the most expensive (by far) option is staying in the US.

From the point of view of developing your brain, leaving your country is a free education in itself. There is also the effect of embedding yourself in a network of expats made up of the best and brightest from countries all over the world. That all comes on top of the education you receive. And if you are less in it for the intellectual stuff and are more into drinking and partying, college life in the US is pretty lame compared to some university towns across the world. Cheaper, wilder, better.

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There is an actually easy an effective escape hatch right here in the US:

Community college to state school path.

You can get a full bachelors degree for ~$35k. All four years, $35k. Not per year. Full degree. $35k.

And that's before any scholarships or grants.

Kids and parents are just insane though, and want to flex about the college they are going to from day one. Its become a ritualistic practice with social shame attached to going to community school.

Even though the end result is exactly the same.

If I remember that right. It is not that easy to get into the state school in our state. UW engineering departments required GPA 4.0 last year. Kids who had GPA 3.9 or less had 0 chances getting into the UW engineering schools.

That is probably not true if you are transferring from a community college after two years. It's entering as a freshman direct from high school that has all the barriers.

Thank you! Interesting. I didn't know that. Do you have any information on why that is?

A degree from the "right" college surely helps for certain firms? Sure, it must be a small number of top ones as most can't afford to be that choosy about their candidates.

Whether that is a sensible strategy for the firm (a candidate bias towards those who can pay the top college fees) is another question.

In those cases the sensible strategy for students/parents is to get most of the degree in the local college and then move to a prestigious college at the very end of one's studies.

I can vouch for studying abroad. But can you get loans and scholarships for it as easily as studying at home? Even if the university is free you must pay for food and housing.

> Even if the university is free you must pay for food and housing.

A one-person apartment in the local halls of residence costs under €500/month here in DE. A room in a shared flat costs a lot less.

Studying abroad in Canada is not nearly as affordable. Tuition alone for international students here is exorbitant ($40,000/year and up). We don’t give any subsidies whatsoever for international students. Instead, we use their tuition fees to subsidize the tuition of our domestic students.

Yeah, Germany must be one of the few still attracting foreign students with no/low fees? I know a lot of courses have teaching in English, landing a job afterwards needs fluent German though.

I wonder how long it will last? UK Universities are now for rich foreigners only. It does mean great options for Chinese food near student halls though.

That can still be too much. Someone studying abroad usually isn’t allowed to work, so they’re making zero income. If they come from a poor family, they have almost if not zero reserves. So everything must be either provided by the college or covered by grants/loans.

Except some universities may allow foreign students to take on-campus jobs, which would probably pay enough. Or for a PhD, usually the university pays you.

> Someone studying abroad usually isn’t allowed to work

Citation needed, because I'm almost certain not being allowed to work as a foreign student is the exception to the rule. A surface level Google search for Western European countries (BE/NL/FR/DE, typical places to go study abroad) shows me all of them allow non-EU students to get a job. You'll typically see these student workers in bars, restaurants, grocery stores, ...

RE the parent comment stating 500 EUR rent is potentially too much for a foreign student to afford, I can imagine it might be. But it's also too much to afford for plenty of native students, and a large share of them get these student jobs to be able to afford their student housing and the likes.

I was thinking of foreign student work restrictions in the US (https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/students-...), where you can’t work outside your subject and in some cases can’t work off-campus.

I looked at other countries and they have much less restrictions, so it seems you’re right and it’s more common than I thought.

Yes - for those coming from USA. Most colleges in EU are part of the US student loan program, through Netherlands appears to be dropping it

The university is the signal. Studying at Stanford or MIT gives you a better (professional) future in the US, while the average American doesn't know universities such as the L'École polytechnique, UNAM, or UBA exist. They will clearly hire from the top US ranked ones.

> There's a simple and effective escape hatch: study abroad. Europe, Australia, South America, Canada even. Some countries are more affordable than others but the most expensive (by far) option is staying in the US.

I mean, good luck finding a job in the US when your degree is not from the us (or maybe Canada). Most industries don't hire folks with overseas degrees.

Really? Which industries wouldn't hire you if you had a non-American degree?

And is this about the content of the degree(s), or just brand name recognition?

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