It’s like being in The hit girls, Easy A, or another typically American college movie: a few days before the start of the school year, on a residential street in upstate New York, a brick house decorated with white balloons and blue, in front of which station wagons and SUVs parade, led by fathers and mothers in overalls, and from which impatient students come out, dragging huge suitcases behind them.
The last week of August is “housing day” at Columbia University, a prestigious American university located in northern Manhattan. Huge boxes full of notebooks, clothes, pans and toasters then circulate between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, until prospective students are finally installed in their assigned residence.
“70,000 euros for the year of the master’s degree”
A dream return for many young French people, given that the attraction for New York remains strong. But the dream has a price: after graduating from ESSEC, Milan, 23, he managed to get a place in a masters in public affairs at Columbia. Motivated, he spent four or six months preparing for the selection tests, a year before the start of the school year: “Columbia University, New York, made me dream! My goal is to work in the humanitarian field, why not at the United Nations, and this university has many collaborations that should allow me to do it after graduation ”.
Having gone to study in the United States outside of any cohabitation, it cost him very dearly in university fees: two years at 70,000 euros each, or 140,000 in total. Of course, the university granted him a merit scholarship of 30,000 euros a year, “without me asking!” “And he hopes to get a job as an assistant professor next year for 20,000 euros, but it will remain at his expense, 60,000 euros,“ just for university fees ”.
And you also have to pay for accommodation, food, books, health insurance, airline tickets to go back to France. After many difficulties and disappointments, the young Frenchman ended up finding an apartment in the south of Harlem, which he shares with 3 other students, an American and two Germans. Amount of his rent: 1,500 euros, for a single room and a shared kitchen that the boys had to completely furnish and equip. A month and a half after his arrival, Milan estimates its monthly budget excluding taxes at a minimum of 2000 euros, without expenses and extras, in a city where a simple donut costs 5 euros.
Since his parents cannot pay for their studies, AC Milan has therefore taken out a very substantial loan from their bank: 150 thousand euros. “I had already taken out a student loan for my degree, which I was able to repay thanks to my work-study contract. I am aware that these studios in New York represent a very large budget, but I think it is an investment that will be profitable. My lessons are fascinating, there is a lot of work, the other students of my master are very involved, I have no regrets ”.
Sport to integrate into the city
Like Milan, Victor dreamed of America. At the end of August 2021 he landed on the other side of the Atlantic, to spend the last 2 years of his double degree Sciences-po Paris – Columbia. In hindsight, the 21-year-old student estimates his monthly budget at 2,400 euros, without abusing too much of the outputs, cooking as much as possible and never buying red meat. Added to this are his university fees, around 40,000 euros per year.
But the cost of living is not the only obstacle to overcome for French people arriving in New York: “It’s a city where you can quickly lose your balance because it’s big, it may sound cliché but it takes time. Time to get there. face it, measure it, says Victor. When I arrived last year, alone, I immediately realized that I would have to find places where I would feel good, so as not to be devoured by the city, which can be very overwhelming. “
The solution for the young man came from running. It was by running and playing sports there that the student appropriated the “Big Apple” and its various districts. To complete his integration, the New Yorker has also joined two associations, another essential step in North American student life: one that offers management consulting, like French junior companies, and another that publishes an art magazine. “It took me a semester to find my job, but today I’m good,” sums up Victor.
Viser des course and partnership
An expensive and dizzying city, not always welcoming as expected, with prestigious higher education institutions but too expensive by French standards: New York must be earned, therefore. But for those who still dream of going there to study, there are solutions. To begin with, the scholarship system, very developed in the United States starting from the master’s level, can sometimes allow university fees to be halved, as in the case of Milan.
Then many French higher education institutions have exchange partnerships with American universities, and in particular in New York: it is obviously the ideal solution to spend a semester there without bleeding. Thus Columbia welcomes two Panthéon Sorbonne students every year for a semester, who pay only the tuition fees of their French university (170 euros per year).
Another solution: obtain a scholarship that covers all the expenses, possible from the doctorate. At 22, after a masters in history from EHESS, Justine is a PhD student at the City University of New York (CUNY). Before her, five years to study religious minorities in America in the 17th and 18th centuries. “I submitted my applications in December 2021 to start in August 2022 in 7 different American universities, it was very boring and time-consuming, recalls the graduate student, I was also surprised by the place given in the application files. History of the students , in my case the fact that I spent my childhood in the Caribbean. Finally, three universities offered me interviews, at a distance, and it was CUNY, a public university, that accepted me “.
Micefa, a good plan for Parisian students
MICEFA (Mission Inter-universitaire de Coordination des Échanges Franco-Américains) is a partnership program between 18 Parisian and Ile-de-France universities and 65 North American universities, in the United States and Canada. Among these, 5 New York campuses, accessible by paying only the French registration fee: State University of New York, City University of New York, Manhattan College, Pace University, St Francis College.
Huge Bonus: All Justine’s expenses are covered by the university. Tuition fees, health insurance (substantial budget in the United States, up to several thousand euros a year), but also room and board, because Justine is housed in a guesthouse in Manhattan, a 15-minute walk from her university and New York Public Library.
He also receives € 750 a month to buy books and finance his trips to the United States to consult archives and carry out his research work. In return she works as a research assistant and will give lessons to 1st and 2nd year students next year: “It prepares me for teaching, even if I don’t know exactly what I will do in 5 years”. Archivist, curator, the field of possibilities is still very open for Justine. Her only certainty: she will probably not return to France anytime soon.
