In the past four years, undergraduate tuition has increased. How much one pays for tuition and fees depends on where students come from and how many credits they take. According to the “2024-2025 cost of attendance” at CWU, if you take 18 credits and are a US resident, the tuition and fee for this quarter would be $3138, which is about a $500 difference compared with the 21-22 school year.
However, tuition increases more for international students. In the 21-22 school year, tuition was $8141, but it is $9175 in the 24-25 school year. The gap is around $1000 and how much international students should pay is about three times that of what residential students’ pay. From here, tuition is now a big concern for students, especially those who come from outside of the U.S.
“It’s definitely become a bigger issue or a more popular issue,” Roz Moes, International Student Advisor, said. “I’ve definitely heard more from students about financial issues than we did in the past But I feel like that’s kind of the same for everyone. I feel like COVID is still having an impact on a lot of people… and then we also have an increase in inflation.” There is no doubt that the tuition increase is now a serious issue for both residential students and international students.
In order to help international students, there is a scholarship that is easy to apply to for them. “We have the international scholarship as well as a couple of other more competitive scholarships,” Moes said. “But for the most part, any student who has a 2.7 or higher GPA is going to get one of three levels of the International Student Scholarship. We call it merit based, and depending on where they fall with their GPA is how much money they’re gonna get, and it made it so much easier. There’s no application that they have to allow, right? There’s nothing. It’s very simple. It’s very cut and dry. There’s no essay that you have to write.”
However, even though scholarships cover the tuition of international students, for some of them it’s still not enough. “For example, if I take the $5000 scholarship and then [I] still have $8,000. $8,000 is still higher than the tuition fee that US students pay,” Senior student from South Korea, Sowon Lee said. “Also American student can get this scholarship or financial aid from the state, but international students cannot take financial aid from the state.” Senior student, Sowon said. “I was trying to search financial aid I can get, and they have a requirement, [When] I can meet the requirement then I can get the financial aid. The first was, you must be US residents, [not the International students.]”
Being an international student is expensive, but there are several ways to mitigate costs through the university. However, there are still financial barriers that make it more difficult for international students to study at CWU.
