For a student from the U.S. is the cost of living expensive? Is there a bank where I can send my daughter money?
Posted by Barbara Coutinho 8 years 7 months ago
I am the parent of a student who wants to study in South Africa in the spring of 2016, is there a way to find our what other students from New England (MA) are going?
When I went I used Facebook to meet up with the others who were in my program. If they search "South Africa Spring 2016" into Facebook they will probably find their program, or another program around them and can join the group there.
The cost of living there was very cheap when I was there a few years ago when $1 was equal to about 7 rand. Right now $1 is almost 15 rand so it is probably even cheaper! There were no American Banks when I was there where my parents could send me money. Instead I got a Capital One credit card that had no international fees and charged most things on there. We were given a bank card when we got there with living expenses from my program so I mostly just used that to get cash from the ATM. Now that US bank cards have chips it might be easy for them to just use their American bank card to take cash out too--just make sure you contact your bank and credit card companies to let them know they will be travelling so their accounts don't get locked!!!
Good luck to them, South Africa is the most beautiful country in the world :)