Thanks to Ipeng generously discounting their program fee, and offering free airfare with the Fellowship Project, the Amman Summer Program is actually very affordable.
Officially this are what the cost would be:
ESTIMATED EXPENSES (based on figures from the previous year)
| Non-Refundable Processing Fee | $125 |
| Program Fee | $950 |
| Tuition & Fees | Range IV U o f I tuition |
| CISIl Health Insurance | $70 |
| Programmed Excursions | $200 |
| Meals (Breakfast & Dinner for 6 weeks) | $500 |
| Roundtrip Airfare | $1000 |
Ipeng subsidized our Program fee, and programmed excursions. Airfare was covered by the Engineering Fellowship. We were also given 185 JD cash (about $260) to help defray meal expenses, free lunches at the Royal Scientific Society cafeteria, as well as free food and lodging during our weekend excursions.
As far as spending money goes $500 is more than enough to buy plenty of souvenirs and stay comfortably for the entire six weeks. If you live on humus and falafel and don't go out at night, you could probably get by on $300. If you plan on doing any additional traveling after the program $700- $800 would be about right.
A revised estimated budget would be:
| Non-Refundable Processing Fee | $125 |
| Program Fee | free |
| Tuition & Fees | Range IV U o f I tuition |
| CISIl Health Insurance | $70 |
| Programmed Excursions | free |
| Jordanian Visa | $30 |
| Misc expenses | $500 |
But whatever it costs it's still a helluva deal.
Additional Expenses:
Car rental is comparable with domestic prices. Taxis are very cheap and probably best way to get around Amman. Service taxis can be taken to major cities such as Damascus and Beirut.
Lodging is provided by Princess Sumaya University and is free. If you do any traveling you will find lodging is very cheap. We stayed in downtown Damascus for about $7 a night for a three star hotel
Food of the local variety is similarly inexpensive. In downtown prices are generally the lowest. $5 could easily provide dinner for four. American restaurants like McDonalds, Popeye's, and Burger King cost about what they do in the States. Generally only tourists and well to Jordanians frequent these types of places as they are expensive by comparison to local restaurants.