how to get out of america for 3-5 years
move to iceland on a student visa.
this is how
The following links are broken because HÍ redesigned their stupid website but you're an adult, I believe that you can find them
undergraduate degrees for internationals at the university of iceland: chinese, english, french, german, italian, icelandic as a second language, japanese language and culture, korean, polish, spanish, swedish
graduate degrees taught in english at the university of iceland: anthropology, biotechnology, interamerican studies, applied statistics, applied studies in german in tourism, aquatic biology, fisheries, arctic studies, biochem, bioengineering, bioinformatics, biology, chemistry, civil engineering, computational engineering, computer science, criminology, danish, earth sciences, electrical and computer engineering, engineering physics, english, environmental and natural resources, environmental engineering, epidemiology and biostatistics, food science, french, geography, geology, geophysics, german, global studies, health sciences, historical archaeology, industrial engineering, inter-american studies, international affairs, international business, international education, literature culture and media, international enviornmental law, mathematics, mechanical engineering, medical life sciences, medieval icelandic studies, methodology, migration studies, gerontology, nordic studies, physics, public health, renewable energy, small state studies, sociology, software engineering, spanish, statistics, tourism studies, viking studies
plus a bunch of phds
english taught graduate programs at the university center of the westfjords: coastal communities and regional development, coastal and marine management
english-taught graduate programs at university of akureyri: natural resource sciences, polar law, psychology
english taught programs at hólar: aquatic biology, sustainable production, equine studies, tourism studies, outdoor studies
(there are other grad degrees at listaháskóli - art school - and háskólinn í reykjavík - private science university - taught in english, but they're incredibly expensive, and i assume if you need to bounce now then you cannot afford to drop $25,000 a semester upfront on LHÍ tuition)
international student applications usually open in december and last til february, except for hólar which changes every year.
undergraduate university studies in iceland require more than a high school diploma. HÍ's current requirements are high school diploma + 1 year of higher ed, or a diploma with 10 APs. if you have an associates or even just a year at a community college, you can apply for undergrad.
application requirements for student residence permit. sum: ability to get $12,000 in a bank account solely under your name every 6 months, application fees, admittance at university, university fees paid (usually hovering around $600 per annum), federal (NOT state) criminal background check (i don't know what's disqualifying), proof of 6 months of insurance (this costs about $250 from sjóva.) you can work 23 hours a week or fulltime during the summer or other school holidays. you will be making ~$19-25 an hour for minimum wage depending on time of day. there is a 3 year jobseekers visa given to graduates of both undergraduate and graduate programs.
the money thing: iceland does not force you to put money in a blocked account. this means that every six months, or whatever, you can borrow $9,000 from your friends, get a bank statement, drop off your immigration paperwork, and give the $9,000 back to your friends, all within 20 minutes. this is legal. i have checked with immigration about this multiple times. this is allowed.
the directorate of immigration will fuck you over on purpose. be prepared for that.
you can stay in iceland while your visa is being processed if you are an american citizen.
considerations:
there is currently a rather large and nasty anti-immigrant wave hitting iceland. international students in specific are being scapegoated. the minister of justice has floated some shit like taking DNA samples and banning dependents. it is possible the government will force HÍ to add punitive tuition even though the school has repeatedly said they do not want this.
most universities admit by degree, not by graduating class. unless your grades are stellar or you have a linguistics background or another language, it might not be a great idea to apply for the icelandic as a second language programs. those have shifted in recent years to act as outreach to the immigrant communities already here as it is quietly understood that almost all of the language schools absolutely fucking suck and the HÍ programs are the only ones that give anyone any degree of workable fluency, which means that though HÍ isn't exactly princeton the entry has become much more competitive even for the diploma.
it is very hard to get permanent residency in iceland without marriage or fluency in icelandic plus a STEM degree. do not expect this to permanently change your life trajectory. this is more to say that if you are capable of keeping your grades up you can get a degree and then 3 years living on a jobseekers visa which will probably be enough time to not have to deal with any of this. and then when it's done you can be like hey i have a master's degree in equine studies
YOU WILL NOT BE ENROLLED IN THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM UNTIL SIX MONTHS AFTER YOUR VISA IS ISSUED.
iceland is cold, wet, dark, windy. no daylight for months. it is horrifically expensive especially if you don't get into student housing. like, it is $60 for a family bucket at kfc. that kind of expensive. the housing market in reykjavík is abhorrent. it is very difficult - in terms of wait times - to access trans healthcare or mental healthcare at large especially if you have ADHD. healthcare is NOT free and some medications that you can get generic in the US aren't available cheaply. the care provided by american doctors is almost 100% more competent and better than icelandic doctors. most therapists have yearslong waiting lists. dentistry is not covered by the national insurance system. if you have SAD this is a bad idea. this is a drinking country in a way that americans are usually really weirded out by. this is also a cocaine country in a way that americans are REALLY weirded out by. weed is sort of decriminalized for small amounts but not legal.
it is very hard to learn icelandic, not because icelandic is that hard (it's not, honestly) but because it's just hard to learn for societal reasons. it is not violent but it is very deeply xenophobic and can be extremely racist. like most other countries in europe, iceland is having a general shift to the right, but they're unique in scandinavia in that they don't have any openly nazi parties at risk of hitting government and it also looks like sjálfstæðisflokkurinn is on the outs. icelanders are less outwardly, smugly, or violently racist and more on the lines of fucking stupid provincials, like you will meet adults your age who didn't see a black or asian person until they were 17 and moved to reykjavík and then still act like they haven't seen any. you will get really annoyed with them. on the plus side everyone is normal about gay people and usually about trans people. unless you get really lucky you will be hanging out mostly with other non-icelandic internationals who are in the same low-wage tourism jobs as you.
there is one mosque in reykjavík. there is a chabad lubavitcher rabbi and a jewish community center but it is my impression that services are not held consistently. it is very difficult to find prepackaged kosher food. there is one american-style independent fundamentalist baptist church and they try very hard to prey on international students.
iceland's total population is about on par with anaheim and the greater metropolitan area is smaller than des moines. UNAK is in a town of 13,000. the university center of the westfjords is in a town of 2000. hólar is on a hill in the middle of literal nowhere. if you cannot deal with a small city then, well, there aren't any bigger ones.
if you would like to pick my brain about this go ahead. i promise you, this is one of the easier student visas to get. you can do an unfunded humanities phd for $400 a year. go forth i guess.
