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, in a residential street in northern New York, a brick house decorated with white and blue balloons, in front of which Station wagons and SUVs parade by, driven by fathers and mothers in tracksuits, and from which impatient students emerge, 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 filled with notebooks, clothes, frying pans and toasters then circulate between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, until the future students are finally installed in the residence assigned to them.
“70,000 euros for the year of the master’s degree”
A dream comeback for many young French people, as the attraction for New York remains strong. But the dream has a price: after his bachelor’s degree at ESSEC, Milan, 23, managed to get a place in a master’s degree in public affairs at Columbia. Motivated, he spent four to six months preparing for the selection tests, a year before this start of the school year: “Columbia University, New York, it made me dream! My goal is to work in the humanitarian field, why not in the United Nations, and this university has a lot of partnerships that should allow me to do so, after my diploma”.
Having gone to study in the United States outside of any partnership, it cost him very dearly in tuition fees: two years at 70,000 euros each, or 140,000 in total. Admittedly, the university granted him a merit scholarship of 30,000 euros per year, “without my even asking for it!” “, and he hopes to get next year a job as an assistant professor at 20,000 euros, but he will remain at his expense, 60,000 euros, “just for tuition fees”.
And you also have to pay for accommodation, food, books, health insurance, plane tickets to return to France. After a lot of difficulties and disappointment, 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 share of the rent: 1,500 euros, for a single room and a shared kitchen that the boys had to fully furnish and equip. A month and a half after his arrival, Milan estimates his monthly budget excluding tuition fees at 2000 euros minimum, without outings and extras, in a city where a simple donut costs 5 euros.
Because his parents cannot pay for his studies, Milan has therefore taken out a very large loan from his bank: 150,000 euros. “I had already taken out a student loan for my bachelor’s degree, which I was able to repay thanks to my work-study contract. I am aware that these studies in New York represent a very large budget but I think it is an investment that will be profitable. My classes 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. With a year’s hindsight, the 21-year-old student estimates his monthly budget at 2,400 euros, without abusing outings too much, cooking as much as possible, and never buying red meat. Added to this are his tuition fees, around 40,000 euros per year.
But the cost of living is not the only obstacle to overcome for the Frenchies who arrive in New York: “It’s a city in which you can quickly lose your footing as it is big, it may seem cliché but it takes time. time to get to grips with it, take the measure of it, says Victor. When I arrived last year, on my own, I quickly realized that I was going to need to find places where I would feel good, so as not to be eaten away by the city, which can be very oppressive. »
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 neo-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 place, but today I’m good at it” sums up Victor.
Viser descursus en partenariat
An expensive, dizzying city, not always as welcoming as expected, with prestigious but overpriced higher education establishments compared to French standards: New York has to 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 from the master’s level, can sometimes make it possible to halve the tuition fees, as is the case for Milan.
Then many French higher education establishments have exchange partnerships with American universities, and in particular New York universities: it is obviously the ideal solution to spend a semester there without bleeding. Thus Columbia welcomes two Panthéon Sorbonne students each year for one semester, who only pay the tuition fees of their French university (170 euros per year).
Another solution: get a scholarship that covers all the costs, possible from the doctorate. At 22, after a master’s degree in history from EHESS, Justine is a doctoral student at the City University of New York (CUNY). Ahead of her, five years to study religious minorities in America in the 17th and 18th centuries. “I submitted my applications in December 2021 for a start in August 2022 in 7 different American universities, it was very tedious and time-consuming, remembers the doctoral student, I was also surprised by the place given in the application files. to the personal history of the students, in my case the fact that I spent my childhood in the Caribbean. Finally, three universities offered me interviews, remotely, and it was CUNY, a public university, which accepted me”.
Micefa, a good plan for Parisian students
The 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, the United States and Canada. Among them, 5 New York establishments, accessible by paying only the French registration fees: State University of New York, City University of New York, Manhattan College, Pace University, St Francis College.
Huge bonus: all of Justine’s expenses are covered by the university. Tuition fees, health insurance (substantial budget in the United States, up to several thousand euros per year), but also accommodation and meals, because Justine is housed in a pension, on Manhattan, 15 minutes walk from its university and the New York Public Library.
She also receives 750 euros per month to buy books, and finance her trips to the United States to consult archives and advance her research work. In exchange, she works as a research assistant and next year will be giving lessons to 1st and 2nd year students: “It prepares me for teaching, even if I don’t know exactly what I will be doing in 5 years”. Archivist, curator, the field of possibilities is still very open for Justine. The only certainty: she will probably not return to France anytime soon.
