Is it common to find Americans that went to Europe to get their Bachelor’s degree to avoid being in debt?

37 comments

1. It’s not unheard of, but there are significantly less cumbersome ways of saving money on college.

2. I’m a dual citizen and tuition in the UK was going to be more for me because scholarships and grants in the US were easier to come by for me. Granted, I only looked in the UK.

   You’ll have to pay some fees and be expected to know the language of said country, of course.

   I think if it was that easy, more people would be doing it.

3. Not that crazy of an idea. I’m proud of New Mexico for getting free tuition for residents here though

4. You can find a few who get European medical or law degrees since the length of study is less of a time burden, not just financial, but they’re avoided like the plague by many until they have ~5 years of practice in the US as a reference.

5. No.

6. I know plenty of people who studied abroad for a semester or two, and at least one person who got a job overseas immediately after graduating from college in the US, but I don’t know anyone who got an entire university education in Europe.

   I’m sure they exist… but the deck is really stacked against them, so even someone who *wants* to do it might not be *able* to!

7. Its really rare.

8. Not very common. Some things that would discourage American students: language barriers, student visa paperwork, lack of name recognition and alumni network in the US

9. No, it’s exceedingly rare.

10. You can apply to German schools, where tuition fees are relatively lower than other European countries.

11. I went to college recently so I know *many* people with degrees or at least college education. I know one person that went to Oxford. That isn’t a lot of people comparatively.

    I know more people that were the children of immigrants or were here in student visas for a degree in the US.

12. Not common at all.

13. No

14. It’s very rare. I’d also point out that the cost of a college education, while not cheap, isn’t crippling for most college graduates. Most of us didn’t go to $50k+ school.

15. No. I know more people who have studied abroad for the experience rather than financial reasons. I don’t personally know anyone who studied abroad to save money.

16. No, but I’m planning on getting my bachlors in europe 🙂 but I have a leg up, cuz I have dual citizenship with a country in the schengan zone so don’t needa deal with visa stuff.

17. No. It’s somewhat of an absurd idea, on its face. Even if tuition is free, a person would need to travel to and from Europe. And they’d need to pay to live there.

    Beyond that, there are many affordable colleges in the United States and many scholarships and grants.

18. Nope.

    Hell, college would have been significantly more expensive for me by going to Europe.

19. No. It’s rare. Plus, those students would have to still pay for their cost of living, the travel, and the education. All said and done the net savings would not be all that great aa compared to going to your home state university.

20. At least for engineering, very few foreign universities meet the accreditation requirements.

    A European engineering degree is much less valuable here than an American or even Canadian one.

21. I can’t think of a single US-born citizen I have ever known who has done this.

    I’ve known one US-born doctor who got his medical degree in Poland (I don’t know the reason why), but that’s about it.

22. Public universities in the US are widespread and generally very cheap. But the US govt. will not pay for your living expenses during university; the defining factor as to whether you have a lot of debt is whether you live with your parents at that time

    I’ve got a lot of student debt but that’s because my relationship with my parents was awful 😅 I don’t really blame America for that, I’m willing to pay for those years

23. No, it’s not common.

24. Very, very unusual. Kids worried about debt are more likely to go to less expensive state schools and look for scholarships.

    If you go abroad, you’ve got to deal with visas, restrictions on your ability to work, and family who can offer very little help even if they want to. Your options for loans are much slimmer. So there’s no guarantee you’ll come out ahead financially if you study abroad.

    You also lose out on the chance to start building a professional network in the US. Your college’s name almost certainly won’t be recognized (and if it’s in a poor country it will be assumed that it’s low quality) so you’re automatically a couple years behind in the career department vs kids who *could* start a career while students or who at least have a big alumni network.

25. No.

    It is not easy to move and live in another continent for an education, and it would not be cheap.

26. Unless they have some sort of dual citizenship or family situation, no very uncommon

27. Very rare. Many of us don’t even have a passport.

28. Seems more expensive to leave the country and pay for housing etc just for college.

29. I looked into it when I was in college. It’s out of reach for most people. While the cost of college is negligible, in order to get the student visa you either have to prove you have enough money in your account to survive a year without working, or prove fluency enough to work and have a part time job lined up.

30. How would going to a university in Europe save an American citizen money?

31. No, in fact the opposite is more common.

32. I think you have a skewed idea of how much education costs in the US. Sure you *can* spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a bachelor’s degree, but you don’t have to. Two years at a junior college (so you live at home) followed by two years at a local state school is probably going to be a lot cheaper than moving to another country.

33. The problem, unless you have duel citizenship, is that you do have to pay if you are from the US. I do have a friend whose child attends college in Dublin, in part because her child has Irish citizenship thru her father.

34. My local state school cost about 10 grand a year.

    I when you weigh the cost of moving to a foreign country against living at home with your parents, it is significantly cheaper to just get a degree here

35. Very rare, considering that I did something similar

36. No.

37. The only Americans I know who did this — 2 of them, I think — went and got cheap tuition in Europe b/c they were already citizens of European countries (one was German and the other was English).

    Otherwise, no. Incredibly rare.