1. Can you share how and why you got into this topic and decided to help students and families?
When my son, Sam, was in 8th grade I started to get really nervous about higher ed in general. I was worried about the admissions process and the cost.
How could we possibly save enough?
I was keeping my ear to the ground on various options. I was reading books like Colleges that Change Lives and watching documentaries like Race to Nowhere, about the do-or-die admissions crisis in the U.S.
It was about this time I saw on Facebook a story about a kid who was studying in Germany, in an English-taught program, for free.
Germany, of course, has programs for free for international students at most of their public universities. So I read the article and hadn’t known that this was a possibility, and thought I’d keep this on our radar for the future for Sam and our daughter Ellie. I figured the options would be limited or the process would be expensive but as I did the research I found the opposite was true.
Actually, there were quite a number of options and the cost was extremely reasonable, and there were also a number of other benefits as well. But it was also super confusing, and so I figured that if this was information that I wanted and could find useful, there were other families that could benefit from the information too.
And so, I took a year, knowing I was going to really research, more than just an interested parent, but researching for BTS, gathering this information to become this one-stop shop of unbiased information on English-taught, bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in Europe. So, my son is currently studying in Europe, in Prague. And my daughter, Ellie, is a senior this year and is planning to apply next month to a university in Ireland where she wants to study Criminology, Psychology, and Law.
2. What is the difference between college abroad and study abroad?
It’s really semantics more than anything.
You think of “study abroad” when you consider a semester abroad as part of a university or college program in the U.S.
With “college abroad” you’re getting your degree in Europe and spending your entire time there.
3. What countries can U.S. students go to for college?
There are countries all over the world where students can study.
We focus however on EU and EEA countries.
So, this is everywhere from Ireland to Estonia, Greece to Portugal to France, to Slovakia and the Czech Republic. If it’s an EU or EEA country, we have information about their English-taught degree programs.
4. How much money can a person save by going to college abroad instead of in the United States? Is going abroad for college cheaper?
The average cost of the programs we have listed is around $8,000 per year, compared to the average tuition in the U.S. of $9,139 (in-state), $22,968 (out of state) and $31,231 (private university).
Further, most bachelor’s programs in Europe are 3 or 3.5 years which further adds to the savings. Interestingly, most programs we have listed are under $10,000 per year but the average is pulled up by the American schools.
Yes, there is the additional cost of airfare and most students we work with go home twice per year. Without using miles or shopping aggressively for discounts, you can get a round trip ticket from most places in the US to most cities in Europe for under $1,000.