The Tough Financial Hurdles Students Abroad Must Overcome


Click above for a good take on what students face financially these days if they want to study abroad, and how so many of them never quite make it.

Neither Meredith nor Amanda Knox came from particularly wealthy families, but they were both clearly driven to make it to Italy, and both worked hard to be able to do so.

In the case of Meredith, she got onto the EC’s excellent Erasmus program, which would have covered most of her bills. She may have been in line for a waitress job at Le Chic.

Amanda Knox seems to have been fully self-funded. She worked long hours in World Cup, a coffee shop near the University of Washington, and she also needed to keep working in Perugia.

Money worries and job worries might have been a contributing factor in the case. This from the Fairfield article might be one of the learning experiences of this sad affair.

Fairfield University is actually a very supportive school in terms of study abroad. It is one of the few schools that allow financial aid to transfer overseas.  “I am going to Italy so (Fairfield) is adjusting my scholarship accordingly,” said Loral DeSalvio ‘

Posted by Peter Quennell on 04/29/09 at 06:11 PM in The wider contexts

Comments

Thanks for the link Pete. As a matter of fact I could never figure out how Knox could have possibly made it for a semester with $3,000 or so in the bank - at the exchange rate of the time, I think it was little more than €2,000 - unless she was planning to stay for a max of three months, and she already had a return ticket and fully paid tuition, and she forgot about expensive habits such as eating and drinking out, traveling around Italy and Europe, discoes, and other amenities…

Posted by Nicki on 04/30/09 at 12:04 AM | #

Good point Nicki. Interesting post and comments here on that subject.

Stew Home seemed to think Knox’s situation was unusual and preventable. A risk taken that someone back home should have spoken up to prevent.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 04/30/09 at 12:55 AM | #
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