Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) Courses and Fees 2025

• The first year is pretty easy as a computer science student. The second year becomes tougher. However, the third and fourth are really demanding for computer science students. There are a few courses that are completely theoretical and a few that are a mix of both.
• If you take 5 courses on average. You will have 2-3 classes per day. However, this will vary from time to time. You can usually schedule your own timings.
• There can be as little as 20 to 300 people. It really depends on the class itself. In my batch there are approximately 600-700 Indian students.

• It is almost sixty-five thousand dollars per year for me, including everything. However, that was two years ago and they have increased the rates to almost seventy thousand, according to some of my first-year friends but I am not sure about the figures exactly.
• They charge semester wise and you can opt to pay it monthly and it came to around 6500 per month for me.
• Off campus, including rent and other stuff, it was 1000 for me.

• The course curriculum isn't too difficult, especially in the first year, with most topics stemming from 11th and 12th grade topics. Most science classes have some sort of lab class attached to it leading to a good mix of both.
• The most negative point is that classes don't require attendance, hence there may not be much motivation to go to classes sometimes. When a student does attend classes, however, it is a very positive learning experience, carefully curated by the professor to be fun and interesting.
• For a first year, a typical day can consist anywhere from 0-6 classes, with an average of 2-3 per day. The timings are completely up to the student and their scheduling
• Large lectures can have upwards of 200 people, while most small classes are under 20 people
• As a computer science major, there are a massive number of Indians, with atleast 5-6 in small classes and atleast 50-60 in larger classes (25% of the student body)

• It costs approximately 55k a year, broken down as 8k a year for campus, 40k a year for tuition, and 5k for miscellaneous things such as prepaid meal plan, textbooks, etc.
• The fees are charged semester wise, and one can opt in for monthly installments
• Since the meal plan is prepaid, transportation is free, and I live on campus, the only regular expenses are for things such as laundry and occasionally shopping at walmart or target

• You can go with university accommodation but it is a bit expensive, around 900–1100 dollars per month but off-campus is a bit cheap, 450–1200 dollars.
• One can easily get off-campus accommodation by searching online. Too much paper work is required for leasing. One of the cheapest options can be Alight State College and the expensive ones can be The Point.

• You can look for apartments via Google or university living; the rent here is not high. You will find that mostly all Indians prefer to stay at Alight State College, so here you can build a strong community.
• The rent here is 549$ per month plus you have to pay for utilities, which would range from 40$ in the summers to 100$ in the winters. I would recommend booking apartments as soon as you finalize the college as the rent goes up later.

• The course curriculum is easy to medium. No courses are that time consuming. The professors and Ta’s are really helpful and actively respond to any query.It has theory along with some practical assignments. Being a MS course you should expect many paper readings and based on then the implementation. Positive aspects are that the course flexibility is great. The professors work on great research if you are interested you can work with state of the art technologies in the latest works.
• A negative aspect is that some of the courses do not have exams. So no exams tend to change students' perspective in studying less theory and focus on other things. Classes are scheduled mostly in the afternoon.In spring I have noticed quite a few classes in the morning as well. Mostly between 1pm to 5pm. The average number of students in a class is 35-40. Around 15 Indian students out of 40 in my course. As compared to other universities the number of Indians is quite less and you get to see the real blend of international students here.

• So the fee is 18,000 USD (with health insurance) per semester. So 65000 USD for the entire two year course (30 credits). The credit based fees is 1975 dollars per credit.
• The monthly expenses are around 600 for rent and 250 to 300 USD for groceries. You should also keep 50/100 USD expense as miscellaneous.  So you should account around a 1000 dollars per month.

• If you don't like physics, mechanical engineering is not for you, it will get harder through your sophomore year and a little easier through junior year, i am a junior so i cant speak about senior year.
• The positive aspects would be the amount of resources, the professors, the learning experience and everything I didn't find any negatives. I have 6 classes on monday, 7 classes on wednesday, 3 labs on tuesday, no classes on thursday, 4 classes on friday. I am taking 19.5 credits and each class is 50 minutes exactly.
• Mine starts at 9:05 am and end at 3:20 pm with a 15 minutes break between each class. Right now in junior year the average would be around 50 for each class. Some classes have bigger lectures and smaller labs, 30 for labs and 15-20 for one lab. This class has a bigger lecture and smaller lab. I don't know how many Indian students are enrolled in my course.

• There is a 5% increase in your fee when you hit 59 credits or more. We had semester wise fee.
• All the fee i am listing below is from my freshman semester from 2022 fall
  I had a room and board fee 6600$
  Tuition was 19051$
  Insurance was 1059$
  International fee was 750$
  UP (campus) student fee was 274$
  Erollment fee was 130$
  Total was around 27600$ for the first semester
• My monthly expenses living on campus would be around 300$-400$ and it varies from person to person depending on how much you are spending on food outside the campus, how much you were partying or travelling etc.

• Curriculum is not too difficult, most of it is very practical with little to no examinations. Most courses, either involve building projects, or writing term papers. The more theory and research oriented courses may include weekly readings and presentations.
• Its mostly positive, as mentioned earlier, emphasis on projects, lack of examinations, and endless opportunities for research and collaboration have been very helpful to my journey.
• Currently I only have classes on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have two classes that are each 1 hour 15 minutes long. On Fridays, I have one class that's 3 hours long.

• We pay fee semester-wise based on the credits we have taken. Since I am enrolled in a 10 credit course, the first three semesters, where I enroll in 3 credits per semester, cost around 18-20k including insurance.
• My monthly rent is 610. Utilities in summer-fall cost about 20-40 per month. In winter, the utilities may go up to about 70-100 per month.Groceries cost around 200-300 per month. Transport is free as bus pass is included for free in my rental agreement. Total living expenses per month come out to about 800-1100 USD.

• The course is a good mix of practical as well as theoretical. The classes are never boring and always leave you with something to ponder about. Positive aspects are the accessibility and resources available for help, where you can personally approach the teachers or their assistants for help. The negative is the class size, with some touching up to 400 people. It gets tough feeling included in such classes.

• The fees is based on semester wise system. 

  • Tution- $23, 762

  • Hostel- Between $2,714 to $4,508 depending on where you live on campus

  • Meal Plan- Between $2,688 and $3,011 depending on which level you choose (Level I, II or III. Higher meal plan= more dining dollars)

  • Since almost all my expenses are already paid for in the fees, my monthly expenses of groceries is barely $30-$50. 

• I dont know much about the fees stucture but Its roughly around $60000-$65000 for international students including everything (tuition living and miscellaneous) per year.
  Tution fees - $40000-$50000
  Living - $6000 - $10000|
  Books - $500 - $1000
  Miscellaneous - $100 - $500
  Travel - $100 - $500
  My monthly expense is $200 - $300
• They charge according to semester wise and credit wise depending on subject to subject chosen by student, student exceeding 19 credits in any semester , has to pay extra credit charge.

• First year its compulsory to stay on campus as a freshmen year, then from second year most of the people select or prefer to stay off campus to get private rooms through real agents or local people or online platforms. Monthly rent varies from $700-$1900 per month.
• Currently for next 2 years, I am staying on-campus because of convenience and service they provide and easy to go and travel to the class and be on time. Mostly Indian stays on campus for first 2 years then prefer to stay off campus to focus on their goals and careers.

Course was leaning towards Industrial Engineering. Syllabus was mostly upto date. School caters mostly to local part time students, does not have full fledged infrastructure to support large no. of students yet. Industrial and research experience is limited.

Total Tuition Fee: 55,000 USD for ~30 course credits.