Yudai Ito, a sophomore from Tokyo, Japan, said he flew himself, Saori, his wife, and Aishi, their seven-month old son, into Salt Lake City after changing airplanes in Los Angeles. The tickets cost a total of $1,500 — $300 for Aishi and $600 for both Yudai and his wife.

Next they took the Trailways shuttle to Rexburg for $120, bringing their total traveling expenses to around $1,620.

Milada Jenickova, a sophomore from Prague, Czech Republic, said it took a plane and a car to get her to school.

It took around $1,000 for both the ticket and gas to travel to BYU-I.

Another expense international students have are their student visas for crossing the border into the United States. Jenickova said her visa cost about $80 and Saori said their visas were $100 each coming from Japan.

Their last expenses were time and comfort. Delayed planes and Immigration Control are some things most international students are familiar with.

Yudai said his son cried the whole time his family was on their 12-hour flight and that made things tough on them. Their flight was also delayed and so they had to fly to Palm Springs, Calif., and then on to Salt Lake City. They arrived in Rexburg at midnight that night instead of 8 p.m. like they had expected.

Trying to get into the United States can be scary, but students do it every year no matter what concerns they may have.

Jenickova said when she first got into the United States last year, she was afraid of Immigration Control because her friend who traveled a few weeks before her had a rough experience.

“So I was worried that they would be rude to me also, but when I got there the officer at the control was very nice,” Jenickova said.

“He looked in my papers and said ‘so BYU-I, I’m from Idaho. Lots of Mormons there.’ Then he started telling me about the weather [in Idaho] and how windy it is there. I was expecting a rude guy and this was a friendly chat, we barely talked about the immigration stuff,” she said.