How Can Students Balance College and a Football Career?

In high school, it can be hard to balance school and extracurriculars. However, once a student gets into college, these extracurriculars become much more important. In fact, in the case of sports, what was an extracurricular activity in high school can be turned into a career in college and beyond.

Working on a football career when in college, though, can make life become quite the balancing act. So, what can be done? How can a student balance college and a football career at the same time? Of course, there is always the help of services like in this case, but what about before that? What about choosing a college?

Should You Stay In the UK or Go to the United States?

Lately, more and more sports students are headed to the United States. After years of barely any exchange students in America, why are students so drawn to the states now?

Well, the main aspect is the price of admission. Once upon a time, we in the UK didn’t see the benefits outweighing the heavy cost of tuition in the United States. Now, though, tuition prices in the UK are on the rise - even so much as tripling in some universities!

This has made it so that UK students aren’t so put off by the idea of traveling to the United States for college. After all, it doesn’t cost exuberantly more as it once did and in some areas of the United States, tuition, fees, and living costs can even be cheaper. It sounds like the perfect way to balance a football career with the cost of college.

The chance to go to America to study and develop a football career is even more appealing when considering others who have done the same thing. Professional players such as Dom Dwyer, Otis Earle, and Matt Watson have made respectable careers playing football by following this path.

On the other hand, though, there are some downsides. The most obvious is, of course, that you might be applying to somewhere you’ve never been. This can make the decision of a school even more difficult.

How Can You Afford to Study Abroad?

While we noted that there are price hikes in tuition in the UK that make the tuition prices in the United States more appealing, this doesn’t mean that tuition prices in the United States are getting any cheaper than they once were. For some schools, they are even seeing their own tuition prices rise slightly.

How can you afford to go to school in the United States, then?

Well, for one, there are more financial aid opportunities. The UK system can, admittedly, be a little frustrating for students trying to find the funds to study abroad. Fortunately, there are other options. For instance, there are some US scholarships that are open to UK students who play football.

When considering cost, though, be sure to look at specific schools that are up for consideration. Not only will tuition costs and fees vary, special attention should also be paid to the living costs in the area of the college in question.

How Do You Choose a College?

The biggest drawback to studying abroad is the fact that the applicant isn’t usually intimately familiar with the area that they are applying to study in. For most students, studying abroad means not even having the chance to tour the campus before applying to or attending a certain university.

With this in mind, how does a student make sure they will love the place they’ll be learning, working, living, and training in before getting there?

The best bet is to do research. Start small, such as finding out if a college is in a rural or urban area, and move up from there. In addition, don’t be afraid of technology as many schools may have virtual tours of their campuses.

Conclusion

Studying abroad gives the chance to test your skills in a new setting and explore somewhere new and exciting. Now, there are extra opportunities as the United States isn’t exuberantly more expensive than UK tuition and there are plenty of scholarships to help along the way.