Not many UB students would say attending college is cheap.
But for Siddhant Chhabria, it's especially expensive.
This semester, Chhabria, a junior economics and finance major, will pay over $9,000 for tuition, over $5,000 for housing and receive $0 in federal or state financial aid.
"Including food, housing and tuition, I'd say I pay around $30,000 a year," Chhabria said. "[And] I'm not on any financial aid policy."
Chhabria is a native of India, and like most international students, he is not eligible for government aid. Like all international students, Chhabria must find room and board away from home and must pay out-of-state tuition - which is two-and-a-half times more expensive than in-state tuition.
International students at UB contributed more than $108 million to the local economy during the 2011-12 academic year, according to an Association of International Educators (NAFSA) report.
That's more than $20,000 per person.
The relatively high cost of attending UB has not kept prospective international students from enrolling.
Last year, 5,357 international students enrolled at UB, making the school the 19th-largest population of international students of any university in the country.
The NAFSA report indicates the large number of international students who attend UB are an economic boom for Western New York.
"The amount of money [international students contributed], there aren't a lot of companies in Buffalo that have a payroll that high," said Stephen Dunnett, vice provost for International Education.
UB has successfully drawn international students to campus after decades of advancing university influence over seas.
In 1979, UB became the first American university to set up an exchange program with China. Today, Chinese students make up the largest percentage of international students at UB.
UB also has an established executive master's of business administration school located in Singapore, which is ranked in the top 15 executive training schools in Asia.
"UB's reputation is higher internationally than it is here," Dunnett said. "We take very good care [of our international students]. We help them with a lot of their day-to-day activities ... and we have all kinds of activities to better integrate them into the university."
International students' attraction to UB is also the result of UB's status as a public university, which makes its tuition low compared to other American universities.
New York Univeristy and University of Southern California - two private universities with a high enrollment of international students - both estimate their cost of attendance to be over $59,000 per year, nearly double the cost an international student pays at UB.
"Because it's a state school, UB's tuition is lower than any other school that [an international student] would go to," Chhabria said. "And it's a big campus with a lot of opportunity, so for the tuition that we're paying it's definitely worth it."
The $108 million UB's international community generates is a small part of the impact international students have on state and national economy.
International students contribute over $2.5 billion to the state economy and $21.8 billion to the national economy, according to the NAFSA report.
Nationally, the number of international students has gradually increased over the past five years. In 2008, UB had less than 4,400 international students and has since climbed over the 5,000 mark. U.S. universities currently enroll 764,495 international students - the most ever, according to USA Today.
Students say young people in foreign countries are drawn to American universities because degrees from America present more opportunities.
Mira Pandya, president of Indian Student Association and a senior biological sciences major, said degrees from America give intenational students "an edge."
"If they choose to go back home, they'll have an advantage over any students that chose to stay within the country," Pandya said. "They could be offered better positions, better jobs."
One of the main reasons Chhabria came to study in the United States was the esteem Indian families hold for American universities.
"[Going to an American school] is considered very prestigious," Chhabria said. "Parents will say, 'Oh, my son is studying in America.'"
UB gains more than a financial advantage from attracting international students to Buffalo.
The university would have trouble preserving its science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs without its international students, who tend to study those majors, according to Dunnett.
"One of the biggest benefits of international students is in the STEM fields," Dunnett said. "Not as many American students go into science and math. It would be hard to maintain those programs without international students."
International students' contribution to the local and national economy is expected to continually increase in the coming years, due to the continued increase of Chinese and Saudi Arabian students studying in the United States.
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