How Much Does a U.S. High School Year Cost on an F-1 Visa?

There is no single answer to what an F-1 high school year costs, and any article that gives you one is guessing. The honest answer is more useful anyway: an F-1 price is a stack of separate services, each provided — and charged for — by a different organization. Learn to see the stack and you can compare any two quotes in the world. Look only at the total and you're comparing guesses.

This guide takes the stack apart: the handful of costs fixed by the U.S. government, the official cost estimate every school has to put in writing, what drives each of the variable parts, the expenses families forget, and the ten questions that make two quotes comparable.

The short version: what's in an F-1 price

Everything below is the detail behind those eight rows — starting with the only ones nobody can argue about.

The fixed costs: what the U.S. government charges

A student applying for an F-1 visa pays two government fees before the interview:

• The I-901 SEVIS fee — $350. It pays for the student's record in the federal SEVIS system. It's paid online before the interview; keep the receipt, because you'll show it at the interview and again at the border. If a visa is refused and you reapply for the same type of visa within 12 months of the original payment, you don't pay it again.
• The visa application fee — $185. Paid before you can book the interview, and nonrefundable whether the visa is approved or refused.

That's $535 before a single class. Two more government costs apply to some applicants:

• A reciprocity fee, depending on your nationality. Citizens of some countries pay an additional visa issuance fee after approval, set to mirror what their own government charges Americans for a similar visa. Check the reciprocity table for your country — for many nationalities there's nothing to pay.
• The new visa integrity fee — $250. Created by a 2025 federal law, it's collected when a visa is issued rather than when you apply. As of September 2026 it is being phased in unevenly: some consulates are collecting it and others aren't yet. Budget for it, and follow your own consulate's instructions.

There's one more cost the government sets, but only at public schools — the district's per capita cost, covered below. It isn't really tuition at all.

The school's own estimate is printed on the I-20

Here's the most useful fact in this article, and almost nobody tells families: every F-1 student's Form I-20 carries the school's official estimate of what the year costs.

Before a school can issue an I-20, its designated school official has to complete an expenses section — tuition and fees, living expenses, expenses for dependents, and other costs — covering the academic year or the length of the program, whichever is shorter. Then comes the rule with teeth: "The total amount of funding must be equal to or greater than the total amount of estimated expenses." The student has to document funding that covers the school's estimate — family bank statements, a sponsor's letter, a scholarship award — or the I-20 isn't issued.

Three practical consequences:

1. It's an anchor, not a quote. It's the school's estimate of tuition and living costs. It won't necessarily reflect every fee charged by the other organizations involved in your placement.
2. You need the full number early. Your proof of funds has to cover the estimate before the I-20 exists, and you'll bring the same evidence to the visa interview and the port of entry. A vague quote isn't a late-stage problem. It's a first-month problem.
3. Ask for the figure up front. A school should be able to tell you roughly what its I-20 estimate will say long before you're anywhere near an acceptance.

Tuition: three very different kinds of number

"Tuition" means something different depending on the kind of school you choose.

At a private day school, it's a real price — set by the school, quoted by the school, and revised each year. Some private schools offer financial aid or merit awards to international students; many don't. If aid matters to your plans, ask about it before you apply, not after you're accepted.

At a boarding school, tuition, room, and board usually arrive as one bill, because the school is also the student's home. That makes boarding look expensive next to day-school tuition — but that comparison sets a bundle against a single component. Compare boarding against day-school tuition plus homestay before drawing any conclusion. Our boarding school vs. host family guide sets the two side by side.

At a public high school, it isn't tuition at all. Federal law requires an F-1 student to pay the district the full, unsubsidized per capita cost of their education — what the district actually spends per student — calculated from the district's own figures or federal education data. Because it's a legal requirement rather than a price, don't expect a district to discount it or offer aid against it. It also buys a maximum of twelve months, in total. The public-school rules have their own article.

Housing: where most of the variation lives

Where the student sleeps is usually the biggest swing in the total, and the least standardized part of it.

• Boarding: bundled into the school's bill, as above.
• Homestay: typically a placement fee to whoever arranges it, and — commonly, on F-1 programs — a monthly stipend passed on to the host family toward the student's room and meals. That's one of the clear differences from J-1 exchange, where host families are unpaid volunteers.
• Relatives or family friends: can remove most of the housing cost, though schools may have their own approval requirements for the arrangement — ask before you plan around it.

The thing to understand about a homestay price is that you aren't only paying for a bedroom. You're paying for someone to recruit and screen the family, match your child to it, check in through the year, and step in if it stops working. That's why two homestay prices can differ widely and both be fair — and why who screens the family, and who do we call in February? is the question to put to every one of them. (Here's how hosting works from the family's side.)

Services: the work behind the placement

This is the layer of the price families most often read as padding, and it usually isn't. Someone has to do each of these jobs:

• Placement and local support — building the host family network, matching, coordinator check-ins, and emergency response. Usually a receiving organization with local coordinators; sometimes the school itself.
• Recruitment and preparation at home — explaining the options, helping with applications, preparing for the visa interview, pre-departure orientation, and keeping the family informed in their own language. Usually an agency or sending organization in the student's home country.
• Program administration — supervision standards, compliance, insurance coordination, and the paperwork chain.

Which brings us to the rule that makes quotes comparable:

A fee belongs to whoever provides the service.

If an organization does the work, it charges for it. If it doesn't, someone else is doing that work — or nobody is. Some families go straight to a school and skip part of this layer, and that's a legitimate choice if the school provides those services itself, or if you're prepared to do that work yourself. What isn't a real saving is a quote that leaves a service out without telling you who's covering it. Who does what across a placement is laid out in full in our six roles article.

The costs families forget

These are the ones that turn up after the budget is set:

• Flights — arrival and departure, and possibly a trip home at the winter break.
• Getting from the airport — sometimes included, sometimes not.
• Insurance gaps — deductibles and copays, even when a plan is included. F-1 has no federal insurance mandate, but nearly every school and program requires coverage.
• School costs — supplies, a laptop, uniforms at some private schools, lab or technology fees.
• Sports and activities — participation fees, equipment, travel to away games, club dues.
• The American school year itself — homecoming, prom, the yearbook, class trips.
• Winter clothing, if you're arriving from somewhere warm and placed somewhere that isn't.
• A U.S. phone plan.
• Boarding school breaks — many boarding schools close their dorms over some holidays, and a student who isn't flying home needs somewhere to go.
• Moving the money — currency conversion and international transfer fees on every payment.
• Spending money — weekends, food out, and everything else teenagers buy.

None of these is large on its own. Together they're a real line in the budget, and the families who plan for them are the ones who aren't surprised in October.

How to compare two quotes

Put these ten questions to every organization quoting you, and ask for the answers in writing:

1. What exactly is included in this price — and what isn't?
2. Who provides each included service?
3. Is housing included? If it's a homestay, does that include the host family's stipend?
4. Who is our local contact during the year, and how often do they check in?
5. Is health insurance included? What does it cover, and what's the deductible?
6. Is airport pickup included?
7. Are government fees included, or paid separately by us?
8. What's the payment schedule, and what does the deposit secure?
9. What's refundable if the visa is refused?
10. What currency is the price in, and who pays the transfer fees?

Asked honestly, those ten questions produce the same pattern again and again: the cheaper quote is usually the narrower quote. It isn't doing the same work for less money. It's quoting fewer of the rows in the table at the top of this page.

Where XportEdu fits

XportEdu doesn't publish school prices, and that's deliberate. Every school, receiving organization, and agency sets its own fees for its own services, and they change every year — one price on a public page would be wrong for most of the families who read it.

What the platform does is make the people who can give you a real answer easy to reach. You can search the marketplace by what actually matters to you — sport, subject, grade, housing type, state — and every school profile has an inquiry page. Depending on the school, your inquiry goes either straight to its admissions team or to a partner organization that offers the school and works with students from your country. Those are the people who can put an itemized price in front of you.

Behind that, XportEdu is built on the same rule as this article: each organization configures fees only for the services it actually provides, and the total assembles from those pieces with what's included in plain view. A number with no breakdown behind it isn't transparency. The breakdown is.

If you're the organization doing the quoting — a school, an agency, or a receiving organization — that's the part of the platform built for you.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost for an international student to attend a U.S. high school? There's no single figure, because the price is a stack of separate services — tuition, housing, placement, local support, insurance, government fees, and personal costs — each set by a different organization. The school's own estimate of tuition and living costs appears on the student's Form I-20, and a student applying for an F-1 visa pays $535 in government fees before the interview.

Is public high school free for international students? No. It's free for local families because their taxes fund it. An F-1 student must pay the district the full, unsubsidized per capita cost of their education, and public school study is capped at 12 months in total.

How much is the SEVIS fee for an F-1 student? $350, paid online before the visa interview. If a visa is refused and you reapply for the same type of visa within 12 months of the original payment, you don't pay it again.

How much is the F-1 visa application fee? $185, paid before booking the interview. It's nonrefundable whether the visa is approved or refused.

What is the $250 visa integrity fee? A fee created by a 2025 federal law and collected when a nonimmigrant visa is issued. As of September 2026 consulates are phasing it in unevenly, so follow your own consulate's instructions.

How much money do I need to show for an F-1 visa? At least the total estimated expenses on your Form I-20. The school can't issue the I-20 until your documented funding is equal to or greater than its estimate, and you'll bring the same evidence to the visa interview and the port of entry.

Can international students get scholarships at U.S. high schools? At some private and boarding schools, yes — some offer financial aid or merit awards to international students, and many don't. Public schools are different: the per capita cost is a legal requirement, not a price, so don't expect a discount on it.

Why are two quotes for the same school so different? Almost always because they include different things. One may cover housing, local support, insurance, and airport pickup; another may quote tuition and a placement fee alone. Compare what's included, and who provides it, before you compare the totals.

The bottom line

An F-1 year costs what its stack costs: a small set of fixed government fees, a school estimate printed on the I-20, and a series of variable services, each priced by whoever provides it. Once you can see the stack, every quote becomes comparable — and the cheapest-looking one is rarely the cheapest year.

Ask what's included. Ask who provides it. Then compare.

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Government fees in this article were checked against official U.S. government sources on September 21, 2026. Fees and rules can change without much notice, so always confirm the current amounts with the official source — or the U.S. embassy or consulate where you'll apply — at the time you apply.