Spanish school

[sivan]

I got the information for a spanish school off this forum and thought i would share my experience with everyone.

I emailed the school asking for prices. She told me 300 dollars for 40 hours. I wrote back expressing my suprise because i was under the impression that it was 200 dollars . She apologised and told me that it was actually 220 with a 25 dollar registration fee. Than i asked for the amount in pesos which i was told was 1275. I realised that this was an exchange rate of 5.2 when the official exchange rate is 4.48. When i pointed this out i was told that the blue rate is 5.75.

I am so sick of being taken advantage of. I earn pesos, my husband earns pesos. I LIVE here, I am not a tourist. The country's official currency is pesos. Why do spanish schools think its acceptable to not only charge me in dollars but than give me a ridiculous exchange rate???!!!

 

[shoush]

Ahhh I know!!! What school was it??? As I have a feeling that I already know!

 

[GS_Dirtboy]

I had a similar experience but nipped it the bud quickly. The school turned out to be a good experience. If you feel you are being taken advantage of then this is a good forum to voice your concerns along with the name of the school. Others here might benefit from that info or might have some other info about the school that could be useful.

 

[sivan]

The problem is that it wasnt just this one school, its been every single school i have contacted in the last few days. This just happened to be the most infuriating experience. It just makes me angry that ANYBODY charges in for anything in dollars when the currency here is PESOS!!!

 

[NoseyParker]

I had the same problem with a certain Spanish school, probably the same one your talking about.... I hop skipped it out of there as fast as my legs could take me.... Sivan I have a private tutor that I can tell u about, he's very reasonable. Pm me!!

 

[ericnelson117]

Which school did you contact? Have you tried Expanish (www.expanish.com) at all. Their prices are really reasonable for the quality of teaching and they go out of your way to make everything comfortable and upfront. At least that has been my experience!

Here's a link to their prices and other info: http://www.expanish.com/price-list.php

That sucks to hear about the other place though. On another note, any idea where I can get 5.75 pesos exchanged for dollars right now?? Email me directly por favor ([email protected]).

I got the information for a spanish school off this forum and thought i would share my experience with everyone.

I emailed the school asking for prices. She told me 300 dollars for 40 hours. I wrote back expressing my suprise because i was under the impression that it was 200 dollars . She apologised and told me that it was actually 220 with a 25 dollar registration fee. Than i asked for the amount in pesos which i was told was 1275. I realised that this was an exchange rate of 5.2 when the official exchange rate is 4.48. When i pointed this out i was told that the blue rate is 5.75.

I am so sick of being taken advantage of. I earn pesos, my husband earns pesos. I LIVE here, I am not a tourist. The country's official currency is pesos. Why do spanish schools think its acceptable to not only charge me in dollars but than give me a ridiculous exchange rate???!!!

 

[trennod]

How about UBA or somewhere outside of the tourist schools?

 

[murvee]

From my experience any quality Spanish school will maintain the same price throughout the whole year, something virtually impossible to do in pesos. This is why they would provide prices in dollars as it is the only way to make sure they can give prices to students that will stay the same. If it were directly in pesos, the school would have to be constantly changing their prices just like restaurants and grocery stores do.

Another example of this is real estate - it is all done in dollars in Buenos Aires as it is a stable currency to deal with.

I recommend checking out prices of other language courses for locals like Portuguese or Chinese classes. You will find that the hourly rate for the group classes in pesos is similar to a Spanish school who charges in dollars if you do the math and take into account class size and servicies provided.

For example, this semester CUI charged around 800 pesos for group Chinese classes. The class is a total of 48 hours (over several weeks) and the classes have a maximum of 18 students (so not super small). The hourly rate is about 17 pesos.

At Spanish schools it looks like the typical rate is US$195 for a 20-hour course and almost all have maximums of less than 8 or 9 people. The hourly rate is US$9.75, so about 43 pesos.

You can see that there is about a 25 peso difference in the hourly rate but taking into account that classes are half as big and most Spanish schools have lots of free activities and servicies that CUI does not offer, it is not so outlandish.

I just wanted to point this out to show that it in many cases it is not schools taking advantage of foreigners, but rather the going rate for the Buenos Aires language class market.

A private professor would obviously charge pesos but most likely would change their rate as the year progressed .

 

[KlaraF]

Hey! I went to El Pasaje Spanish School and they always charge you with the official exchange rate of that same day! They check it on the internet right in front of you as they're making the calculations to know how much is it if you want to pay in pesos. They didn't charge any registration fee, so I'm surprised to hear some schools do. And the 20-hour course costed me U$S165, so I think it's a good option and they don't take advantage of the tourists!

 

[Saraires]

I recently had a good experience with Lvstudio in Palermo - they calculate it based on the days rate. I'd recommend the classes also, the teachers bring you on walking trips and you really get a chance to learn very relevant things in a different more interesting way. The studio has free conversation class every Wednesday so if in doubt go to that and you have nothing to loose. They also have conversation social events on Fridays where you can mingle with you classmates. all in all, I had a very nice experience with them.

Sarah