CTland

Wow the installments plan is a good deal.
I had thought that most wanted the overseas students to pay up front in case they dropped out early...will have to try to negotiate

Sue

Just goes to show how different they are. One wanted a £3,000 deposit

Sally Redux

My son seems to be leaning towards US uni now. One thing I did notice was that halls of residence seemed much cheaper at the UK unis, unless I'm reading it wrongly.

Bob

Depending where you go, when I went, they were £80 a week if you wanted a sink and a single room, only shaved a fiver off having a double so not worth it.

Halls in the US are weird though, in private places, they're huge just like in the tele, but in most, they're monging grot fests of shared rooms spread around the common group kitchen/living space from the few I've seen, whilst in the UK, not much better, but they were more centred around the showers and less shared space except the kitchens.

Aston Uni though, worst digs I've ever seen, drop down bed from the wall, which flopped over the desk, there wasn't any other room, it was marginally larger than the bed...they were showing these off as the nice and new rooms when I went to check them out as a kid, I'd hate to see their shit ones

Sally Redux

I think they've changed a bit since my day, I was in a women's hall which was like Gormenghast or something the first year (actually great fun), my husband tells me most rooms are en-suite over there now.

Mummy in the foothills

How do you know if the college in the UK is eligible for fafsa? Ds wants to go in UK too, in fact he's said he's going back period. He wants to be a policeman, sargent, detective, whatever it is.

Sue

You can call them and ask, but the university my son is going to had all the details on their website, so all we had to do was plug in the number on the FAFSA site. I wouldn't have known that if it wasn't for CTland as our school's college counsellor told me that schools abroad didn't qualify. I've since put her right

CTland

I have found the whole Uni thing to be one hell of a headache- there seems to be so much misinformation out there.
One thing that surprised me was for the US uni's there seemed to be a 'published' price which then could be quiet heavily discounted if they thought your kid might bring up their averages....like working with car salesmen!!
I wonder if for the 2012 UK entrees if they are going to raise the International fees proportionate to the new UK fees and if that in turn makes them a less attractive proposition???

dunroving

I work in a UK (Scottish) university and all I know about what's happening come next academic year is that I know nothing. Things are changing with alarming speed and in completely unexpected directions. It's like being on a roller-coaster without a sick bag. My record day this week lasted 19 and a half hours, but none of them last less than 10 hours (and that includes working every Sat and Sun). It's insane, no way to live. Do you really want your kids to be taught by professors who by October will have lost all sense of reason?

Sally Redux

True but California is in the same boat.

dunroving

Yes, I think some US states are in a much worse financial position than others, whereas my feeling is that most UK universities are in a similar boat to each other (and those that think they aren't soon will be).

From job applications and interviews, it seems the US universities in many stats are still doing well financially, although some belt-tightening is going on. None of my US colleagues has yet been asked to double-up class size, take on major non-teaching duties (like room scheduling and finding part-time staff), etc. Our F-T permanent teaching staff numbers arer down from 12 to 3, and we are just plugging the gaps with part-timers (who we have to find, hire, and train). US universities still seem to be hiring - the Chronicle is full of jobs, whereas the Times HE and jobs.ac.uk are pretty sparse.

I can imagine that CA, MI, IL and others are going that way, from what I've heard.

CTland

Is the new 2012 fee structure in the UK supposed to add extra revenue to the Uni's or just make up for the reduced payments from the Gov? If its the latter then how is this supposed to help the Uni's move forward?
Can the UK Uni's currently charge whatever they want for overseas students or is that capped?
The problems mentioned by other posters for US Uni's- are these just the State schools or also private schools?
There are a few really good state schools in our area and as an in state student you could be paying maybe 75% less than a private school and even as an out of state student perhaps 50% less...surely the states don't subsidize out of state students also? where does the disparity lie?
I have heard that the NY state schools (SUNY) have been lobbying hard to be able to charge more.
Our school councilor told us not to bother applying to UConn as they were being swamped with high level applications due to the economic down turn!!!
Our daughter got accepted to a SUNY school and they told her that she was one of 2,000 accepted out of 30,000 applicants!!... if the private schools are not feeling the pinch then no wonder they feel like they can just keep upping those rates

Sally Redux

Yes I think you're right.

The problem for us is that the Republicans are blocking the setting of a budget, the proposed $500 million cut to UCs is likely to be doubled because of this.
As far as I can make out it is just supposed to replace government funding, not 'help the unis move forward'.

killerhales

On the subject of UK University International fees, I would speculate that these won't change much in 2012.

It was already a "free market" regardless of what is happening with the home tuition fees.
So the unis are already charging as high a fee as they think they can get away with.

I guess that demand from wealthier Indian and Chinese students might be a bit higher every year that passes, but other than that I reckon the "supply" and "demand" balance will be roughly the same as it is now.

We'll all know in May anyway.