Do you have to pay to join the peace corps?

Question

Do you have to pay to join the peace corps?

Answer 1

No. they provide training, air fare, medical and dental care and a living allowance. You get a re-adjustment allowance when you finish, too. The living allowance lets you live at a modest level in your host country. (My daughter earns $350 a month, more or less; the exchange rate fluctuates.)

You'll take the bus instead of having a car and won't get a monthly manicure or a daily Frappachino Supreme; you won't have the premium cable plan, either. You don't starve. You may learn to eat animals you didn't eat at home, (goat, guinea pig, water buffalo, monitor lizard, . . . ) you'll certainly eat vegetables you didn't know existed.

Your wardrobe won't win prizes and you may wear the same set of socks twice in a row. You may have running water, but chances are you won't have a water heater, if you go to the tropics. I didn't, and my daughter doesn't.

The official web site is graphics-heavy but comprehensive:

http://www.peacecorps.gov

If you are interested, you can read about my time as a PCV in Sarawak, on the island of Borneo, many years ago. I search Y!A for the phrase "Peace Corps" every week. I have a page devoted to the questions that come up the most frequently, too:

http://www.tedpack.org/pchead.html

My page "Peace Corps Links" has a link to the Returned PCV web ring, which has 40+ other RPCV sites.

Answer 2

Hello...

you don't pay a fee to join Peace Corps.

Peace Corps pays a modest fee to you after

training in your host country, for expenses

where you are finally stationed.

Ahhhhh, the Peace Corps. Meandering through a rural village in an exotic place where no one speaks your language. Palm trees and romantic monsoons. Elephants and water buffaloes lumbering past your front porch. Grass huts and smiling children looking up at you adoringly.

Financial assistance. You will receive a modest monthly living allowance that will (we hope) cover all your basic necessities and some travel. In addition, just so you don't come back to the U.S. destitute, you receive over $6,000 (it comes from a monthly allowance that Peace Corps collects for you) to help you readjust upon your return. Of course it's more likely that you'll blow it all on a great trip after you are done with your ser