A few American colleges provide a free education, including the military and Merchant Marine academies. They accept some foreign students.

Berea College is a small Christian school in Berea, Kentucky, that pays all first-year costs for its foreign students. But they are expected to pay one thousand dollars a year after that. Summer jobs are provided to help meet this cost.

Costs for graduate study in the United States also differ from school to school, and even from program to program. Here too, public universities charge more for out-of-state tuition. For example, at the University of Kentucky, out-of-state graduate tuition averaged about eighteen thousand dollars this year. In-state was about nine thousand.

American students often have to take out loans to help pay for their education. President Obama recently signed into law a bill that changes the student loan system. We’ll have more on that next week.

And international students can learn much more about studying in the United States on our Web site. Look for the Foreign Student Series at voaspecialenglish.com.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Steve Ember.