5 Ways to Study Abroad For Free or Cheap

Studying overseas can be an incredible opportunity, but it can also be very expensive. Fortunately, there are plenty of options available to those looking to study abroad on a budget or even for free.

Remembering that a large portion of the money you spend on studying overseas is for comfort and peace of mind is the key to offsetting the expense of studying abroad. Study abroad programs may charge you extra for assistance with housing searches, university enrollment, or even assisting with the visa application process. You can greatly simplify your study abroad experience by handling any or all of these responsibilities on your own.

Here are some strategies for reducing those expenses so you can study abroad for little or no money at all!

Table of Content

  • 5 Ways to Study Abroad for Free or Cheap
  • 1. Apply for Scholarships to Study Abroad
  • 2. Pursue Distance Education/Online Courses
  • 3. Identify Programs that are Affordable and Suit You
  • 4. Go for Countries where Education is Provided Free of Cost, or not Expensive
  • 5. Work and Study at the Same Time

5 Ways to Study Abroad for Free or Cheap

Although studying abroad is expensive, and becomes a major challenge to students who dream to do so, the rewards are always better. Studying in a foreign country is quite a game-changing factor in a student’s life. Let’s now proceed to a detailed look at the methods involved, to guide you through the process:

1. Apply for Scholarships to Study Abroad

First and the most basic step, is to look up scholarships. Scholarships are a great opportunity for any student who’s determined enough. It doesn’t matter what field interests you, where you want to continue your education, your financial condition, or anything else. You are not the only student who is looking to study abroad for free, you are just one of them.

There is always a scholarship for you to grab onto. The universities always look for deserving students, and therefore, they offer scholarships that demand a student’s merits, qualifications, and achievements in extracurricular fields.

So, with a sufficient amount of research, you would find a scholarship that would make it easy for you to maintain your expenses for the duration of your studies.

2. Pursue Distance Education/Online Courses

Now, If you reconsider and get to the decision that you aim to get an international degree, you can just step forward to get a distance education program!

You can pursue your education while being at your home, all you would need is just a stable internet connection. A lot of foreign universities offer distance learning courses, which you can opt for. However, you might want to do some research before making any decision related to the course you would pursue.

But, however, if getting an international degree by merely studying from home seems a boring option to you, you can always look up for the programs that would require your presence on the campus for a period of a week or two. Therefore, in this manner, you would get to experience a mixture of both the aspects, offline and online at once.

3. Identify Programs that are Affordable and Suit You

This is because you would come across all kinds of courses, the unexplainably expensive ones and the ones that are free. Now, it is up to you only, to choose the type of program that perfectly aligns with your needs and the expectations. We are looking for a course that isn’t financially burdening us, and at the same time, fits curiosity and our field of interest. It needs to be realistic, and not just worth talking about.

You can do so by looking up the various universities, sorting them on the basis of the courses offered, the education cost, living expenses in the country, and reducing your options to a lesser extent. Now, keeping your options limited would help you in various ways, but most importantly, it would reduce your confusion and provide a better insight without you even knowing it.

4. Go for Countries where Education is Provided Free of Cost, or not Expensive

Now, merely solving out the education expenses is not going to actually make everything a piece of cake. What we are looking at, is education overseas. Therefore, our next step is ensuring that the country we are planning to go to, has a low cost of living, and also has top-class universities so that our dreams pay off.

Now, although you have to research upon it for some better insight, here are the countries you can consider looking forward to:

  • Germany
  • Canada
  • Norway
  • France
  • Mexico
  • Finland
  • Taiwan

Now, Germany may be one of the top choices when it comes to pursuing education. This is because the public universities in 15 out of the total 16 states in this country charge absolutely no tuition fee from its students. Now this is for all the students, their nationality does not matter at all.

Now, deciding upon the country needs to be a wise choice. This is because, if the course fees is not as high but the living expenses are, that would help nothing in lowering down our financial burden as a student.

5. Work and Study at the Same Time

Sounds difficult, right? It is not. Infact, this is just a component of an international student life. As a student, working part time would provide you with an additional income, which you can use for covering your living expenses. In addition to studying and other academic chores, you can surely pick up a part time job.

This should be done in such a manner that it does not affect your studies. Studying and working at the same time is nothing hectic, this is just the way a lot of students have done the journey in order to settle into their lives abroad.

Now, before going for a part time job, take an overview of the allowed things under a student visa. There are also limited hours you can work in a week, so that must be kept in mind before applying for the jobs there. Irrespective of anything else, go for the jobs that are the ones you can work for.

Conclusion

You can surely dream of studying overseas. A lot of people have already completed their journey and now are successful in their lives. Studying abroad for cheap is not impossible when you know about it.

We hope that through this article, we are able to solve your concerns regarding the financial issues faced by students, and how to tackle them.

5 Ways to Study Abroad for Free or Cheap- FAQs

In which country the education is free?

The countries like Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, all provide education to its students at free or a low-cost. In Norway, the university education is offered free of cost to the students, regardless of their study level.

Which country is cheapest for Indian students?

Germany is the one of the countries that are the best for Indian students in order to study abroad. It provides university level education to all of the students, irrespective of the nation they belong to.

Which country is safest for Indian students?

Iceland is the world’s most peaceful nation, after securing this position in the Global Peace Index 2023. Therefore, Iceland is undoubtedly the safest country for Indian or any other country’s students, willing to study here.