How to Study Abroad on a Budget

Our office encourages you to take various steps to ensure that you can study abroad if studying abroad on a budget is a concern. Sometimes studying abroad can be cheaper than staying at Baylor for a semester. While you are required to pay Baylor tuition, housing and living expenses can often be cheaper. Please see the list below for money-saving tips.

1. Choose a destination where the currency is weaker than the American Dollar. By doing this, you will often have to pay less for housing, travel expenses, and living costs.



2. Find discount booklets or cards that allow you to get discounted prices for meals and city travel. These money-saving coupons are often very helpful for students who are studying in big cities. Many restaurants, stores, and travel companies give college students discounts and these cards/booklets are often a helpful way to find out what places offer the best deals.



3. Stay in hostels instead of hotels. While many people believe that hostels are unsafe, you will often find that staying in a hostel is the best way to travel for cheap and to meet new people. The misconception that hostels are unsafe will be quickly disproved when you're traveling and find that many other students are in the same boat and staying in hostels as well. The key to finding a hostel that is safe is location, location, location. In addition, there are many websites that allow people to write hostel reviews and give insider tips on the hotspots to stay.



4. Learn to cook! You will often find that your lifestyle in another country will be quite different from your previous American lifestyle. Often times, eating out can be very expensive in large cities and in countries where the currency is stronger than the American Dollar. You should have no problem finding grocery stores and produce markets that will give you an inexpensive way to enjoy the delicacies of your new country. And most of the time, you will have housing with a kitchen so that you can cook their own meals.



5. Try to find alternative entertainment. Most of the students who will study abroad will travel to large cities with lots of culture. You can often find inexpensive ways to entertain yourself by going to museums that offer free admission, attending free concerts, participating in university-sponsored events, or getting involved in a university club. The point of studying abroad is to experience another culture and finding alternative means of entertainement is often a very good way for you to dive in head first.



6. Travel cheap. Most of the destinations where students study have very good public transit systems. In addition, when you are traveling away from the city, you can often find discount airlines and cheap train tickets to get where you want to go.