HI!
Last week I was in the Dominican republic and I went to check UNIBE out. I spoke to a lady in charge of the financia aid office and she told me that those students from the US have to filled out the FASFA application and that they will recieve $18000. $8000 which will go to pay school and the other $10000 is given to the students for their personal expenses. She told me this will occur every 8 months.

I just wanted to know if anyone is going through this process or if they know anyone that is recieving so much money from the US government.
If so, I would like to know a little better how that works. Do you really recieve so much money and if you do how to you get, by installments.

I would greatly appreciate any information

Hi there.

I'm not an UNIBE student, I attend INTEC. INTEC now does dispersals in the same way as UNIBE allowing for a dispersal of 18,500 dollars every nine months instead of eight beacuse the semesters at INTEC at three months long and not four. In any case, the way INTEC does it is that every semester you get a check in the totl amount of around 5,700 from which the university substracts your tuition for that semester and gives you the rest for your expenses. So at INTEC every month you have approximately 1,300 dollars to play with for boosk airfare and any other expenses you might have. Im not sure if UNIBE disperses the lonas every semester o if they do it twice a year. In either case the total amount is the same. At UNIBE you get around 27,000 every 12 months and at INTEC you get around 23,000 every 12 months.
At UNIBE: 27000-12000(tuition)= 15000/12=1250 per month for expenses
At INTEC: 23000-6000(tuition)= 17,000/12=1400 per month for expenses

When considering coming down here I urge you to use caution in designing your budget. It has gotten rathe expensive to live down here compared to what is cost several months ago. If you want to live by yourself and live na d pretty decent apartment close to UNIBE you should be looking to spend no less than $400 per month. elecrtricity will rarely if ever drop below 40 dollars per month if you never use an air conditioner, in my case with about 5 hours of usage of a 6,00 BTU air conditioner I was getting electric bills over 100 dollars. In addition food is rather expensive if you don't like to cook. Phone should set you back around 40 dollars per month at least depending on how many calls you make to the states. Transportation if you live close to UNIBE should be pretty cheap. I just think potential students hould bear in mind that even though 1200 dollars sounds like a lot of money in a third world country it requires some stretching to make it last every month when you consider airfare to the states, internet, textbooks and the expensive kaplan courses you might wish to take a year or so down the road, let alone appliances and any such stuff should you rent an unfurnished apartment. Take care and God Bless.

Ozzie.

Ozzie,
Correct me if I am wrong, but I was told that UNIBE considers one full academic year after completing 2 semesters each consisting of 4 months each.
4 months + 4 months = 8 months (one academic year) this means that during this time I would recieve $18500.00. $8000.00 which will go to the school and $10000.00 for my expenses. I was told that this will go on every 8 months (every academic year). So am a little confuse when you say other wise.

My other question is: you are a student from INTEC ( I know where that is because I also went to check that school out), they only offer classes in spanish?
How do you prepare for the USMLE?
Does INTEC offer KAPLAN?
If they do how much? BEcause I know that UNIBE offers it but for a cost of $2500.00 every semester (something like that)

Hi,

INTEC's medical program is exclusively in spanish. They presently don't have a kaplan center on campus. INTEC students use the UNIBE kaplan center for USMLE prep. I haven't looked into the cost so I couldn't really tell you. I was looking more toward online study banks and such that you can purchase from Kaplan, self prepare material packasges and the like.

As for the tuition issue, you are correct, at UNIBE one ACADEMIC year is 8 months or two semester. Therefoe each semester or every four months you get something in the neighborhood of 9,200 dollars. If you multiply that figure by the three semesters that there are in a calendar year (12months) you arrive at around 27K. It's all about the difference between the academic year and the calendar year. I believe it was Skull who first brought this to my attention. Since the calendar year is the definition of year used for loan limits the school can disperse 18.5 every academic year even if it's not 12 months long. If UNIBE could only give its students 18.5K in loans every 12 months they wouldn't have any american students. It's virtually impossible to live on the 540 dollars per month that would leave you after tuition. What the school told you is correct, every eight months you 18.500 minus two months of tuition leaving you with 10,000. Then the cycle happens all over again 8 months later I assume depending on how many dispersals the school has. INTEC for example will be doing it every semester, so we get a check every three months, or will soon. Hope this clarifies any question, if not lemme know.
Take care and God Bless.
Ozzie.

Hey all, although this thread is more than a year long, its the only one that deals with financial aid... I thought i might clarify an issue too:

the $18,500 is only for BASIC SCIENCE semesters: if you plan on taking pre-med here, you would only qualify for max $3,500 per 8 MONTHS if you are dependent, and a little more if you are Independent (married/over 25/have children... any one of these) so be prepared to pay most if not all the tuition and living expenses for your pre-med semesters because the 3,500 makes a small dent in the total cost of attendance...

Im a current student, and had to learn this the hard way...

Hello,

I'm currently an independent student in my third semester of pre-med here at Unibe. Because of my status being independent, I only had to pay out of pocket about $380 out of the $4,000 tuition. The remainder has been covered by the Stafford Loans.

Hope this helps.

Faisel