Living frugally in less expensive countries will save students vast sums of money no matter the exchange rate, students say.

“If you live in a very poor country, and you’re willing to live like the natives or close to the natives, then you can live pretty inexpensively,” said economics department Chairman Kevin Lang, who studied abroad during the 1970s, said. “If you don’t insist on living like an American, then it won’t be as expensive.”

Countries with lower labor costs, like those in Latin America, tend to be less expensive for Americans, Lang said. BU offers study abroad programs in Argentina, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru.

Not so in developed countries like England, France and Australia, where the dollar is worth less than the local currencies, and daily living expenses rank among the world’s highest.

“When I was an undergraduate in England, I thought of England as a pretty cheap place to live,” Lang said. “Nobody now would think of England as a cheap place to live.”

While studying in London last semester, College of Communication senior Kevin Sirois said he thought his debit card had been stolen when he noticed his depleted funds.

“I had about $2,000 in my own bank account that I had saved up to go abroad,” Sirois said. “The first couple weeks, I stressed out about the exchange rate, then I stupidly followed the advice of one of my suite mates and didn’t think about it much.”

“By the time it got to spring break, I was out of my $2000,” he said.

Sirois said necessary expenses like food and laundry took the highest toll while he was abroad.

“It cost about 15 pounds to do laundry,” he said. “That came out to about $30.”

On top of high living costs, study abroad fees for BU programs have also increased with tuition, institutional relations director Joseph Finkhouse said.

“The prices go up every year, just as the price of BU goes up,” Finkhouse said, though “we always try to emphasize that the cost of studying abroad is always either the same or less than studying here in Boston.”

The internship programs in Australia, Ireland, London, New Zealand and Paris are the least costly at $15,990 for the semester, Finkhouse said. The more expensive programs in China, Ecuador, Italy, Niger and Spain cost about $23,979 per semester.

Still, even lower tuition sometimes fails to make up for the high cost of living in richer countries.

College of Arts and Sciences senior Amanda Cermak is studying in Auckland, New Zealand this semester, and last fall, she studied in Ecuador, which uses the U.S. dollar. Although the U.S. dollar is worth more in New Zealand, the cheaper living costs in Ecuador saved Cermak more money, she said.

“Living in Ecuador was really cheap compared to living in Auckland,” Cermak said in an email. “At the bars in Ecuador, you could get a huge beer for $1, while here, the beers are about $6. In Ecuador, the bus was 50 cents, and the bus here is $3.60.”

CAS senior Ashley Reade said she thinks learning to live and budget is difficult anywhere.

“Affording to live is the biggest challenge anywhere, even the U.S.,” she said. “I think that is a lesson we as college kids will eventually learn and be forced to deal with as we grow older.”