[staticelf]

I think the best solution for individuals in the US is to move to an european country, stay there and work until you get some kind of permenant stay visa or citizenship so you can enter college for free.

That usually do not take long for americans. If you have kids you can do it when they're small so they are ready for university when they come of age.

[lazaroclapp]

Hell, a few countries will provide tuition free education for foreign nationals too. The challenge is that Americans interested in that will have to prepare the corresponding entrance exams instead or in addition to SATs and have sufficient language proficiency.

I knew students back in Mexico preparing for their Abitur exams for Germany at the end of high school (in all fairness, they were coming from bilingual private high school, which is a extreme luxury in Mexico, but still way below what college tuition in the U.S. looks like at most research universities...).

[netsharc]

For Germany I know you don't need to be a citizen to be able to take college with the same terms and conditions as natives, it's "free" since most places have a per semester administration fee (5 years ago this was around 100 Euroes). To get a residence permit to study one has to show that one is able to finance one's self, or have someone (e.g. a parent) as a sponsor. The residence permit allows 20 hours/month of part time work for foreigners (or even more if you're working in your area of study), so that is taken into consideration when you go to renew the residence permit every 2 years.

[pmiller2]

Isn't it rather difficult for a non-EU citizen to become employed in EU member states?

[netsharc]

Look up "blue card scheme". If you have a university degree, and you interview somewhere and get the job, and your salary will be over 1.5x average national gross salary (In Germany this calculates to around 39KEUR/year), you will get a residence permit, none of this "is there an EU citizen qualified for the same job" check.

As for the salary, I can only say a German computer science graduate being offered a real programming job would probably laugh at anything below 45K, and is looking at around 50K. After tax this comes to around 30K/year (don't quote me on this number), which will be enough to live if you're single, for more costs of living you can check numbeo.com

[pmiller2]

>If you have a university degree....

Um, the post I was responding to mentioned getting residency in Europe in order to take advantage of the university system, so....

[netsharc]

Ah.. you can see my response above about that. They have residency permits for the purposes of study, you have to show that you can finance yourself or have a sponsor (e.g. a parent).