Tuition Costs Explained
“How much does New River Academy cost?”
Application Process: Application Fee: $150 (nonrefundable) and Deposit/semester: $1400/semester
Phase I: Student Application (fee)
During this process families express their interest in the school and return the Phase I application with the application fee. NRA will research the student’s academic needs, check personal references, and assess the students kayak abilities with the goal of approving your NRA acceptance letter.
Phase II: Enrollment (deposit)
If a NRA application is accepted, the student will receive a letter of acceptance and begin enrolling in NRA. During phase II families will begin legally transferring transcripts and choosing their tuition payment plan. Legal documents such as waivers, med forms, and the alcohol and drug contract will be completed. When you submit the enrollment packet with your deposit, then you will have secured the next seat available for a NRA semester.
Phase III: Packing list. What do I do next?
Next, NRA administration will be sending you most of your updates via phone calls and emails. Families will be guided with everything from packing lists to how to travel with your kayak.
Activity Fund: $750/semester
The activity fund is an account for the student maintained by the school. Past activities have been multi-day rainforest trips, NZ helicopter paddling adventure, attending plays, hiking a volcano, and other adventure or educational tours. At the end of the semester or year, the balance of the activity fund is reimbursed to the family.
Saving Families Money
NRA has found that we can gain educational and group discounts for many international activities through purchasing as a group rather than individually.
International Flights: Varies with each country, ~ $1300 per flight
NRA administration arranges group international flights with one travel agent approximately one month prior to departure. Why so late? The travel agent has the ability to lock fares once she discovers the best rate. Often, rates drop for a small window of time approximately one moth prior to trip with the airline goal of selling all seats. Our travel agent has the goal of securing kayak friendly airlines, securing a group discount, and arranging for all flights to depart the US from the same US hub.
Saving Families Money and Time
Students from around the country will have tickets organized to fly to as a group to their international destination. via Houston. NRA will have faculty in the central airport with the goal of the entire group departing on the same flight to the final destination. This step saves families money by not having students purchase an additional airfare to our WV base, then traveling to the international desticnation.
Semester Tuition Rates for 2008-2009: $17,800/semester and $29,800/year
Saving Families Money
Costs of college preparatory boarding schools typically range from $20,000 to $40,000 annually. Most boarding schools have a day school option in order to save local families funds. Unfortunately or fortunately, NRA has only a boarding school option. When you consider that NRA is capable of moving an entire school with faculty while providing athletic coaching you will see the NRA value in comparison to top college preparatory boarding schools.
Families who have transferred their child from a previous boarding school have found NRA tuition rates to be a remarkable value in comparison to what other boarding schools offer.
Students will receive dedicated faculty traveling with them at all hours of the day. Faculty become mentors, leaders, and role models. NRA employs cooks or restaurants, hires shuttle drivers or rent vans, leases properties such as cabanas and cabins, pays communication fees, flies a school with kayak gear and school equipment, has trailers tailor made for our trip, researches logistics prior to each trip, administrates academic processes, provides constant feedback via our website, and offers the highest level of education and kayak coaching.
Text books: Approximately $150
Once enrolled NRA administration will lead families through the process of ordering text books.
Saving Families Money
Text books may be resold at the end of semesters. Ask about purchasing used textbooks to save money.
Spending Money:
We recommend establishing a check card for the student. This will allow the family to control the amount or establish a personal budget. Travelers checks are often hard to cash and many times we have to seek a bank and wait for two hours in a long line only to be told “no.” It is easy for us to find an ATM, aka automatico, in all our host countries. Students may want to shop for gifts, buy phone cards for calling home, pay for internet cafes, buy a churro (Chilean equivalent of funnel cake), or other tourist related expenses.
Kayak and Outdoor Equipment:
NRA and Huge Experiences are so well respected that the outdoor industry offers benefits to our faculty and semester students. Each semester students will have the option to purchase kayak and outdoor equipment from manufacturers at pro-deal/sponsorship rates.
Saving Families Money
Many top kayak and outdoor accessory companies offer “pro-deals” to NRA fulltime students and faculty. A “pro-deal” is a level of sponsorship allowing participants to purchase products at wholesale and sometimes less than wholesale costs. Examples of companies offering pro-deals: NRS, Jackson Kayak, Werner Paddles, Astral Buoyancy, Immersion Research, Pelican Case, Patagonia, and the list continues.