CSULA, ASU, SDSU & UARIZONA Admission for International Students

In the US, State College Systems do not give full ride scholarships to International Students. Their primary purpose is provide a lower cost of education to students who live in a particular state like California or Arizona. Even if your family is low income making $30,000 or less per year, you may qualify for a PELL Grant of $6195 if you are an American but still have to pay the remaining cost of $30,000 per year at say a CAL STATE LA. I entered $30,000 as an experiment on the CAL STATE's Net Price Calculator for a family of 4 with an income and 1 child attending the school and it came up with those results. While $30,000 still seems a lot, that is better than $80,000 which is what a private college may cost.

If you are low income looking for best possible financial aid package as an International student you should not spend any more time looking at Public or State colleges since they will not meet 100% of your financial needs with grants you do not have to repay. You may have to take out a large amount of both Institutional and Private loans to attend these colleges.

I don't know what kind of of student you are but if you are an A student with impressive course rigor and test scores, then I would focus on Private Colleges that give out excellent financial aid on the West Coast. For example SOKA University in Aliso Viejo is a private Liberal Arts College that has generous financial aid. So does Scripps college, Pitzter college, and Claremont McKenna College.

I would enter as much data as possible into the College Vine Profile about yourself, and then make a list of colleges and see what your percentage chances are for getting in. Every college has something called the Net Price Calculator on their financial aid section of their website. This is useful to get a ballpark amount of how much the college will cost to attend each year.

Good luck.