Many have written about the large influx of international students onto U.S. university campuses. You may be asking yourself, what's the difference between their tuition and that of U.S. students? We answer this question by using the city Ojisu is headquartered in, Pittsburgh, as an example.

The three largest universities in Pittsburgh are The University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne, and Carnegie Melon. The University of Pittsburgh, being a public school with funding from the state government, is supposed to offer lower tuition rates to students from their state. As shown in the table below, in-state students pay about 28% less than their out of state counterparts. International students, however, pay even more than the out of state students at $50,174 a year. While this price also includes expensive fees and housing for the year, the tuition alone is also more for international students at Pitt (41% more for an Arts & Sciences degree).

Private schools, on the other hand, have the same tuition and general fees for students--required health insurance is the only price difference. However, if housing and boarding is included, this difference skyrockets. Some schools offer international boarding at sometimes twice the price for living and eating in the same places. A single room at Duquesne is $7,434 for a U.S. student but $14,868 for an international one--exactly two times as much. This makes a huge impact on a student's final budget. Since Duquesne charges more for housing but Carnegie Melon does not, this difference is well illustrated in the chart below.

So how much more is international tuition? We urge our students to do their homework on each school's costs, because it is impossible to generalize this into one answer. Sometimes it's more expensive, but other times it is roughly the same. The only clear difference, is that public schools, since they are government funded, almost always charge more for international students. However, as in the instance of the University of Pittsburgh, this increased price can still be less than that of private universities like Duquesne and Carnegie Melon.