Moving to LA (los angeles) to go to university - any advice?

Question

i currently live in the UK and i'm in college sitting my a levels - im considering moving to LA to to go university and fulfilling my dream of becoming a movie director after my gap year (so in the summer of 2010) i come a middle class family and have about £9,000 to start me off - how much are rented accomodation there (Roughly) and do the school fees differ in price enormously??? were do i start????

Answer 1

While there is a wide range of universities in the Los Angeles area, and some are much less expensive than are others, if your goal is to become a film director, unless you manage to get into UCLA, you are talking about private universities costing $30-40,000 per year (cut that roughly in half for pounds) for film school.  The decent ones are UCLA, USC, Loyola Marymount University, and Chapman University.  If you are an outstanding candidate, you might apply to a few of the private universities I mentioned and see if you could qualify for a scholarship there.  There aren't many of them, but it could cut your tuition costs considerably (if not altogether).  If you are only an average student, you have fewer options.  The community college route doesn't work for film schools, which are usually impacted and therefore don't take transfer students.   Rents in most of the safer areas near the major universities are high in Los Angeles, but that may be irrelevant because if you are not living at home with your parents, most schools would require you to live in on-campus housing.  I'm a faculty member at LMU, and right now our website lists room and board at $11,290 for nine months.

Answer 2

9000 isn't going to be near enough money to do what you are proposing!  That's only a little over 18 thousand dollars!  That might cover one year, but I doubt it!

Answer 3

You have about $17,000USD right now but you are going to want to continue working and saving more money.Airfare alone will cost about $600USD at the cheapest to LA. Not to mention university costs a LOT more then what you have (around $13,000-$22,000 depending on uni). You will need to look into loans to help you out as if you are trying to go soon (the next two years) working constantly may burn you out. In your pocket right now you may have just enough for uni for a year, but nothing more.

Renting in LA is not cheap either. Your best bet is to try craiglist, or a student networking site like facebook or myspace about people looking for roommates. It will be a lot cheaper then living on your own. Or you could try the dorms