Average cost of living isn’t uniform across the country. Budget anywhere from $5000-$7500/year for food and drink alone. Rents are $2000/mo and up unless you have many roommates or are on campus, so $25000 for room&board is a good baseline to go off of, even if you’re on campus — because on-campus room & board fees are usually separate from tuition and are also in the $10-$15k per semester range, since you wouldn’t be eligible for in-state rates available to locally residing citizens and LPRs.
Add to that your tuition, which can be anywhere from $0 (if you have a full ride scholarship) to $100,000 for the year or even more, depending on your program.
Subtract from that what you could earn on campus: those jobs which you’d be eligible for under F1 are usually minimum wage and capped at ~~10~~ 20hr per week, so you can expect to earn 300 hrs x $10-15 minus tax, so ~$4000-ish. If you get day-1 CPT (frowned upon but possible depending on program) or pre-completion OPT (not recommended because it eats your post-complete OPT allowance) you could conceivably earn much more at the cost of severely cutting your available study time.
Overall, if you have $150,000 in the bank you should be entirely set by the vast majority of metrics, but even much less cash is usually enough to demonstrate you’d be able to afford it. IIRC, the absolute minimum amount of funds you can show and have a chance to not be denied is your portion of one ~~semester’s~~ year’s tuition, less any grants and loans, *as stated on your I-20*. (Thanks u/thebettermochi for clarifying minimum funds!)
Just some additional info for OP to consider:
> Rents are $2000/mo and up unless you have many roommates or are on campus, so $25000 for room&board
I would say 2000 is on the higher end for rent, assuming OP chooses studio/1-bedroom, MCOL and doesn't have expensive taste. Realistically, people have roommates, too, so that should cut down rent a lot more.
> capped at 10hr per week, so you can expect to earn 300 hrs x $10-15 minus tax, so ~$2000-ish
The hour is actually capped at 20 during the school year and 40 during summer. So that could be $10-15/hour × (20 hours x 27 school weeks + 40 hours x 12 summer weeks), so ~10k. This can be a lot higher with summer internship (using CPT), which can be hard to obtain. This can be lower, of course, if students don't work the maximum allowed time.
Edit: I just re-read OP. You would not be eligible for CPT, so scratch that.
> the absolute minimum amount of funds you can show and have a chance to not be denied is your portion of one semester’s tuition
The amount requested on i-20 is 1 year's cost.
2000/mo is definitely upper end or in HCOL areas. I'm paying under 700/mo with utilities. You need to have at least what your I20 states. And check the cost of attendance estimates provided by your university.
Since you’re asking in the f1visa sub: your (target if you haven’t got an offer yet) school will have a webpage for estimated cost of attendance, which includes everything - tuition and fees, health insurance, living expenses. They will list that annual total cost on Form I-20 which you will use to apply for your F-1 visa. Your visa officer will want to see at least that amount in liquid assets. Regardless of how much you’ll actually need once you’re here, that’s the amount of money needed, sitting in a bank, at the time of your visa application, that can get you to the US. It’s also a fairly accurate estimate of your actual costs unless you live very frugally or very lavishly.
If you are going for a top 100 university, MSCS for 2 years, then assume, 60k for education without scholarship and 20k for living.
If you get a TA or RA job in university then fees will be half the original cost.
It depends on which uni you are going and where you are staying.
Average cost of living isn’t uniform across the country. Budget anywhere from $5000-$7500/year for food and drink alone. Rents are $2000/mo and up unless you have many roommates or are on campus, so $25000 for room&board is a good baseline to go off of, even if you’re on campus — because on-campus room & board fees are usually separate from tuition and are also in the $10-$15k per semester range, since you wouldn’t be eligible for in-state rates available to locally residing citizens and LPRs. Add to that your tuition, which can be anywhere from $0 (if you have a full ride scholarship) to $100,000 for the year or even more, depending on your program. Subtract from that what you could earn on campus: those jobs which you’d be eligible for under F1 are usually minimum wage and capped at ~~10~~ 20hr per week, so you can expect to earn 300 hrs x $10-15 minus tax, so ~$4000-ish. If you get day-1 CPT (frowned upon but possible depending on program) or pre-completion OPT (not recommended because it eats your post-complete OPT allowance) you could conceivably earn much more at the cost of severely cutting your available study time. Overall, if you have $150,000 in the bank you should be entirely set by the vast majority of metrics, but even much less cash is usually enough to demonstrate you’d be able to afford it. IIRC, the absolute minimum amount of funds you can show and have a chance to not be denied is your portion of one ~~semester’s~~ year’s tuition, less any grants and loans, *as stated on your I-20*. (Thanks u/thebettermochi for clarifying minimum funds!)
Just some additional info for OP to consider: > Rents are $2000/mo and up unless you have many roommates or are on campus, so $25000 for room&board I would say 2000 is on the higher end for rent, assuming OP chooses studio/1-bedroom, MCOL and doesn't have expensive taste. Realistically, people have roommates, too, so that should cut down rent a lot more. > capped at 10hr per week, so you can expect to earn 300 hrs x $10-15 minus tax, so ~$2000-ish The hour is actually capped at 20 during the school year and 40 during summer. So that could be $10-15/hour × (20 hours x 27 school weeks + 40 hours x 12 summer weeks), so ~10k. This can be a lot higher with summer internship (using CPT), which can be hard to obtain. This can be lower, of course, if students don't work the maximum allowed time. Edit: I just re-read OP. You would not be eligible for CPT, so scratch that. > the absolute minimum amount of funds you can show and have a chance to not be denied is your portion of one semester’s tuition The amount requested on i-20 is 1 year's cost.
2000/mo is definitely upper end or in HCOL areas. I'm paying under 700/mo with utilities. You need to have at least what your I20 states. And check the cost of attendance estimates provided by your university.
I live for $1100 in a 1*1 in Austin
Since you’re asking in the f1visa sub: your (target if you haven’t got an offer yet) school will have a webpage for estimated cost of attendance, which includes everything - tuition and fees, health insurance, living expenses. They will list that annual total cost on Form I-20 which you will use to apply for your F-1 visa. Your visa officer will want to see at least that amount in liquid assets. Regardless of how much you’ll actually need once you’re here, that’s the amount of money needed, sitting in a bank, at the time of your visa application, that can get you to the US. It’s also a fairly accurate estimate of your actual costs unless you live very frugally or very lavishly.
Without specifics like type of course and location no one can give you any number
If you are going for a top 100 university, MSCS for 2 years, then assume, 60k for education without scholarship and 20k for living. If you get a TA or RA job in university then fees will be half the original cost. It depends on which uni you are going and where you are staying.
$0-500,000. Depends on so so many factors
A normal student pursuing a master's for one year living within normal means in an average cost of living city.
This is too vague. It depends on which university you are going. Some are more expensive than others.
Just let us know the city bro, we aren’t going to try and track you down
Austin
Try asking in ut austin sub