Please note that, for the purposes of this assignment, this financial plan is entirely operating under the assumption that I get accepted to the University of Glasgow, which definitely isn’t certain yet.
Work
This summer, I hope to participate in the MEDB Stemworks Summer Internship Program. The application deadline is April 30 and I will find out if I’ve been accepted on May 15. Upon completion of the program, I will receive a $1000 stipend, which I will use to pay for the textbooks I’ll need during my first year of college.
Living situation
I will be living with my parents during the summer until I leave for college in late August / early September (for the school I want to go to, I should show up on campus by September 7th).
Transportation
Over the summer, I will be volunteering at the library, probably hanging out with friends, and hopefully participating in the internship program. All of those activities will require transportation. I will get two monthly bus passes ($30 for students), one for June and one for July. If I remember correctly, the internship program may reimburse me for passes because they will be used to commute back and forth between home and whichever company I’m placed with for the program.
This of course depends upon where I’m placed for the program as well. If the location of the company is near my house or near the work of one of my parents, I would be able to commute there without the bus (either catching a ride with my parents or walking there from my house). I live close enough to the library to be able to walk back and forth in a reasonable amount of time. Also, my sister is already employed there and she will need to get rides to work anyways from my parents, so that’s an option for transportation to the library if it turns out I won’t be needing a bus pass for the internship program.
I will obviously end up taking the bus at some point over the summer, but if it’s only once a week, that will add up to about $16-$20 a month ($4 daily pass x 4-5 occasions in a month), less than I’d spend on a monthly pass. A monthly pass will only be economical if I expect myself to have to get 8 or more daily passes within a month.
I will pay for my bus passes with money I have saved up from working at the library, and as I said before, there is a possibility that the internship program will reimburse me for them this year (as they had in previous years).
Where to?
I will hopefully be attending the University of Glasgow in Scotland in the Fall. I am putting the finishing touches on the application and I plan on submitting it on Thursday (so that I can look over it with a fresh set of eyes). I am hoping to receive conditional acceptance because I am taking the SAT subject tests on May 5.
Assuming I am accepted, tuition for an international student studying engineering at UoG is £20,150 or ~$26,354.19 a year. The cost of living for single students suggested by the university’s Guide for American Students is around $15,120.
They broke down the cost of living per month as:
$620 for Accomadation
$240 for Food
$95 for Clothes
$55 for Bus, underground (subway), and taxi fares
$40 for Laundry, stationary, stamps, and toiletries
$55 for Telephone/internet
$160 for Entertainment
They also said to allocate $530 for books and $400 for UK travel annually.
It was extremely helpful for the university to include this information in their guide. I feel that the values provided are useful and realistic, however they may vary a little depending upon which university apartments I choose to live in and the fact that my preferred degree programme, Biomedical Engineering, is well known for having lots of expensive textbooks. I’m allocating about $1000 a year (nearly twice their suggested amount) for textbooks just in case. I will try to buy good quality used books as much as possible. I may sell back some of my textbooks at the end of the year, unless I feel that they’re important for reference in future courses or in my career (as many engineering texts are).
I also don’t expect to end up paying $95 every month for clothing. I’m aware that Scotland is a very cold place, however $95 should be able to get someone a really nice coat, and an additional $95 should cover sweaters, boots, and jackets. I’d be bringing three pairs of my own jeans, three of my hoodies, two large sweaters, lots of socks, tights to wear under the jeans, the giant coat I’ve brought to Europe before, two pairs of gloves, and a couple scarves and hats that I’ve crocheted over the years from home.
An important thing to note is that this DOES NOT include the cost of a student visa or flights back home to Maui (which I will get to below). According to my research, a student visa should cost about $438.15. Student visas are valid for 5 years. I may use any leftover money from my “textbook fund” (summer internship stipend) to pay for the student visa. Or I’ll use some of the money I saved up over the course of high school from other internship programs and my job at the library.
I have a college fund set up to help pay for tuition. My extended family has given me money every year on birthdays and Christmas for that fund basically ever since I was born, and it should get me through almost a year of college tuition-wise. I am in the process of applying to a few different scholarships to help cover the rest of the tuition and possibly a little bit of the living expenses as well.
Living situation
I would most likely be living in University residences. Since I’m hoping to get conditional acceptance and would have to prove my test scores later to get unconditional acceptance and be eligible to choose my housing, I would most likely get stuck with the last choices available. I’m personally interested in the Student Apartments (£4,122.30 or $5750.06 a year) or Cairncross House (£3,731.91 or $5205.51 a year), the two cheapest options that are also very close to campus. Notice that the cost of both of these is less than the estimated $7,440.00 a year that UoG gave in the student guide. However, as I may not have many choices for where I’m going to be able to stay by the time my offer could become unconditional, I am going to assume that accommodation will be about $7,440.00 a year. All the rates given include WiFi and utilities, unless of course you use an insane amount of power for one reason or another.
Transportation
I plan on walking around campus and using public transportation such as the bus and underground. As we saw above, it should cost approximately $55 a month. Looking at the bus passes for students (for the academic year) in Glasgow, I can get a yearly student pass for £350 or $488.20, and the website claims £1.13 or $1.58 a day. With the subway, a yearly pass is $676.51 (£485).
However, considering how close by the University accommodations will be to the campus (between 15-30 min walk for most of them, but only 2 min for the student apartments), I don’t think I will need to use public transportation quite often enough to have to buy yearly passes. Looking at Google Maps, there’s a Pret A Manger within 8 min of the Glasgow Campus, as well as some grocery stores (Sainsbury Local) between 9 and 15 min away (depending upon which one you go to). The city centre is super close to the Glasgow campus, which means that a lot of necessities are within reach. However, for adventures...
I could see myself getting all day passes for the subway here and there (£2.90 or $4.05 per all day pass) and maybe a one week student bus pass here and there (£14.00 or $19.53 each) for exploring the city during, say, Spring Break. If I find myself in need of catching the bus asap (their bus system is super good and efficient), I would be spending £1.60 ($2.23) for a single pass. Overall, I could see myself staying well within the $55 a month expected transportation budget.
Work
I hope to get a job as a student helper (“Roving Student Ambassador”) in the 12 story Glasgow University library, at least at some point during my college career. I don’t know much about the job right now, other than it’s a paid position and one document I did find mentioned it being 9 hrs a week. Since there aren’t any current openings (end of the school year), there isn’t much information about the salary or the job itself (other than social media posts from the library introducing the student ambassadors), however Scotland’s minimum wage is about $8.23 (£5.90). If I was paid minimum wage and worked 9 hrs a week, I would end up with $74.07 a week. I’m interested in this job mainly because I love libraries and would like an opportunity to work on campus if possible.
Travel?
During winter break, I would like to travel back home to Maui for a couple weeks. I looked up flights from Glasgow to Maui to visit my family and I should expect to end up paying about $2,000 for a round trip.
Living Situation
Would be the same as the Fall living situation.
Transportation
Still expecting about $55 a month for transportation, see above. Mainly same as Fall transportation situation. I do not plan on purchasing a car at any point during college. However, I may get a bicycle at some point, which usually seem to cost a few hundred dollars.
Work
Would hope to be working as a student ambassador in the library, or perhaps have another on campus job. Other than those options, I may not opt to work my first year in college.
I expect to have to pay about $43,912.34 total during my first year of college. I expect that I have enough savings to make it through the first semester or so, then I will most likely have to take out some loans. I am still researching loans for college - as student loans in Scotland are a little different from ones here. I still need to see if I’m eligible for loans in Scotland, however I can still get federal student loans from the US to be used for UoG (I made sure to check the list).