American Students Moving To Europe For Free College

College Life
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@PurpleTitan I think you are just re arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

I think using a modicum of common sense it is pretty self evident for the vast majority of candidates a degree from UCL will be substantially cheaper than the equivalent from NYU, by multiples, and that goes for the whole sector not just these two schools. I know this, it is a fact, I /D are going through it right now. Furthermore there is a clarity in the UK admissions process that gives parents and kids transparency such that they know what to expect both financially and academically. The premiss of the thread is why UK and European universities are viable alternatives in higher education to the US and I think the case is there, but parents and kids are free to choose between the two.

I have done enough ranting on this thread but it really burns me how these Stakhanovite kids end up being shut out of schools which are a clear match academically, even flagship state schools are no longer a safe home it seems. This situation has come about enouraged by the universities for the benefit of the universities themselves. Its almost mental abuse what these kids have to go through to reach their goals.

So as not to just rip on the whole process I see three ways in which the situation can be improved immediately, they are not perfect but…

  1. Limit common app’s to 7 schools only, if you want to apply to more schools individually go shead.

  2. ACT/SAT’s should have no time limit, make it as much about what you know as how fast you can read, stop the gaming and level the playing field.

  3. Make sure the universities/colleges have some skin in the game, if they are the recipient of federal student loans than make them co-sign then lets see how holistic they get.

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@elguapo1: “I think using a modicum of common sense it is pretty self evident for the vast majority of candidates a degree from UCL will be substantially cheaper than the equivalent from NYU, by multiples, and that goes for the whole sector not just these two schools”

Did I disagree with that? It’s odd to me how, instead of sticking to simple answers of fact to simple questions, you like to interject emotion and assumptions in to everything.
Trying to ignore basic issues of fact doesn’t help anyone. In any case, if UCL is like other English unis I know, only the first year of university housing is guaranteed.

“Furthermore there is a clarity in the UK admissions process that gives parents and kids transparency such that they know what to expect both financially and academically.”

Yes, the British programs are a terrific option for those who understand their positives and drawbacks.

“I have done enough ranting on this thread but it really burns me how these Stakhanovite kids end up being shut out of schools which are a clear match academically, even flagship state schools are no longer a safe home it seems. This situation has come about enouraged by the universities for the benefit of the universities themselves. Its almost mental abuse what these kids have to go through to reach their goals.”

There you go with your assumptions (or at least set way of thinking) again (for instance, what seems to be a narrow definition of what “academic match” means; and for Brits, the top UK programs aren’t safe homes either–not when there are 10 applications for every slot and most who apply to a program meet the minimums). In any case, I am quite cynical about the American higher education admissions process, so my advice if you believe the college application process to be mental abuse: Don’t play. The great thing about the US is that there are many paths to a goal. Any goal, actually. Granted, yes, there is also a bewildering amount of opacity in the whole system, but those who do their homework can find a plethora of opportunity as well.

Anyway, #3 tells me that you still don’t understand why the American private elites operate as they do. Oftentimes, they are paying those kids (as in, giving them so much in scholarships and grants that they are definitely losing money on them) who are admitted under a holistic system but would not get in via any test score system to attend. And not even encumbering them with loans. Given that, why do you think that curtailing loans would stop holistic admissions?

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NYU is much more than $47,500 a year. Wonderful education in the heart of NYC but total cost is $73,000 with room, board and personal expenses. You’re looking at $292,000 for 4 years IF there is not tuition increase and the student graduates in 4 years. If your student is interested in attending NYU, be sure they apply as a freshman. They will be much more likely to receive financial aide or scholarships as an incoming freshman versus a transfer student.

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@mysmom: It’s a bit of a tough call, though, if, say, you can get your first 2 years for close to free (either by going to a CC or somewhere at a full-ride or close). Yes, your likelihood of money from NYU goes down, but it’s pretty tough to get enough grants/scholarships to equal 50% of COA from a school like NYU anyway.

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@PurpleTitan, I agree. My d passed on NYU for more reasonably priced state school. She’s attending UCL for a semester as part of study abroad. She would have loved studying in NYC but taking on that much debt was out of the question. Loving London and appreciative of her U.S. education.

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New York vs London is really a bad example. The vast majority of students in BOTH the US and UK are not attending school at either of these. Here we have two of the most expensive places on earth, them being expensive should not be a shock. There are plenty of schools in both the US and UK comparable academically but in much more reasonable areas.

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@Mandalorian: One the one hand, yes, on the other hand, with sterling where it is, 3Y in an English uni will always cost less than 4Y full-pay at a top private or OOS at a public.
Granted, there would be no fin aid over there and little in the way of scholarships (though TCD, which is not in the UK, offers some).

And if you enter an English uni, you better be sure you know what you want to study (though I see that UCL has a bunch of combo courses/majors now: “History, Poltics, and Economics”; “Social Sciences with Quantitative Methods”, “Arts and Sciences”, “Statistics, Economics and a Language”, "Statistics, Economics and Finance, "and of course, PPE, among others). The education itself is fairly different as well.

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@PurpleTitan . Thanks for the reply. In line with the premiss of the thread I have tried to explain how at the moment the UK in particular is a viable alternative to the US college system both in terms of cost and in meritocracy of admissions. If I have failed to communicate effectively I apologise.

To address your question in solution 3, I dont distinguish between public and private. In the business of the US college system, and I believe it is a business, holistic admissions is just another word for maximising revenue; you can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig. When an undergraduate degree can routinely cost between $200-$250k at both state and private schools; when my daughter can travel 5000 miles for a world class education cheaper than driving 2 hrs down the interstate at her instate flagship then there is something wrong with this picture.

Considering some private schools are now taking a substantial percentage of their intake in the ED round they are doing 2 things, they are gaming the rankings by protecting yield in order to ‘brand’ their institution, whilst also of course locking in a large percentage of their class at full freight, all under the veil of holistic admissions. You are correct that there are some instances where generous aid is available but it will be dwarfed by the percentage of full freighters, after all they are not in the business of losing money, and nor should they be. However tuition has reached such obscene levels its beginning to have a very negative affect on society as whole. Highlighting those stats for NYU, why are only 83% of kids graduating in six years, and why not report the 4 year graduation rate, probably because it is embarrassingly low. This is conjecture on my part but I have to believe finances have a major part to play in this. In what started as the dream school gradually morphs into the nightmare as kids and parents come to the realization they simply cant afford it, ultimately forcing some to delay or drop out completely. We are creating a generation of kids going through life saddled with debt, it complicates major purchases like cars, houses and delays the production of the next generation of workers. Going through life servicing debt is not good for the economy or society.

The days are gone when a summer job could pay for a college education, this is because college tuitions have exploded over the last 20-30 years. There is no question that some of this is due to the reduction in state funding for public schools but it is also the firehose of cash which has been pointed at universities and colleges both private and public through Federal student loans. This is a transfer of cash to the colleges is with no strings attached, they have no liability, if the loan isnt repaid the ultimate bag holder is the taxpayer, make the univerisites and colleges more accountable by making it more affordable and having a stake in the kids success; yes I realize its about personal responsibility but the universities themselves should have a greater part to play. With such a fountain of wealth universities spend money like drunken sailors, new recs centres, bloated staff numbers (note staff not faculty), new stadiums, safe in the knowledge they can just increase tuitions and the kids will just have borrow more. Ensuring universities and colleges are more accountable for loans should provide a check to spending, maybe we take that instate kid who needs to borrow less than that OOS kid with the lower stats. Privates of course can admit who they like and they may choose to stack their insitutuions with only full pay students, but it will of course expose ‘holistic admissions’ for what it is, revenue maximisation.

This is not a perfect solution I know and folks can pick holes all they like, but something has got to give because the system is broken. The blame is not squarely with the educational institutions either, it will continue as long as parents and kids engage in the college admissions arms race believing only certain colleges can provide what it takes to succeed in life when the empirical evidence surrounding them suggests this is not the case, if they only chose to look.

Thanks for watching.

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@Mandalorian, someone mentioned cost at UCL and I compared with NYU because I am comparing apples with apples. I could have chosen St Andrews/Williams, Bath/Wisconsin-Madison, the results would be the same just a matter of scale.

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@elguapo1 I think that another thing that you might have not covered is the lack of vocational training in the US. I know some people already mentioned it but I would like to add on. I feel that TOO many people are going to college. This is the case because there is no alternative. Of course, there are community colleges but MOST of their graduates get jobs with salaries between $30-40k. This is not enough with today’s economy. I think we need to revamp our entire educational system. We should focus more on apprenticeships (similar to the German system) working with local businesses and companies. Community colleges should be given more spotlight, and certain 4 year degrees should be streamlined to 2 year degrees.In their junior year of high school, students should be put into different tracks. For example, academically talented students with high test scores & grades should start taking college courses while others should start doing an apprenticeship at a local business or a manufacturing company. Of course, the tracks should be flexible and if the less-achieving student re-takes a standardized test and gets a better score, then he or she should be moved to the college track. With this system, less students will be applying to college. This means that there will be more seats open to the applicants, and there will be less competition in already over-crowded degree fields such as sociology & law, Also, we should still address the loan crisis and “holistic admissions.” When it comes to holistic admissions, this should only apply to athletes since they bring money to the school. All other applicants should be judges PRIMARILY on grades & test scores.

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@Mahindra I was trying to keep the debate to the UK as an alternate destination to the US for university, but I agree with everything you say, have a like! My nephew, bright lad, decided from high school college wasnt for him, he apprenticed as a plumber and now employs his brother and they have a kitchen and bathroom remodelling business. They are minted!!!

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@elguapo1: So it seems to me that you don’t want to understand the motivating forces driving higher education in the US. I’m curious, if you think American colleges are 100% about profit maximization, how do you explain the fact that at pretty much no American private (including NYU) does much more than half the student body pay the full list price? How do you explain the fact that all the Ivies/equivalents could fill their entire student body with full-payers if they wanted to and suffer no appreciable drop in the stats of the incoming class yet they refuse to do so?

BTW, profit maximization is a big driving force in the UK as well. How else do you explain Americans typically having an easier time getting in that locals in to most UK unis*?
It’s just that in that case, profit maximization works to your advantage so you don’t rail against it.

*Excluding Oxbridge and LSE, where just having the test scores isn’t enough for anybody.

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BTW, @elguapo1, nobody is paying $200-250K for an in-state American public (assuming they’re American who qualify to be in-state). Unless you’re taking 6-8 years to get a bachelor’s degree or something like that.
In fact, as I mentioned before, someone who has the AP scores to get in to top UK unis almost certainly could graduate in 3-3.5 years from an American one.

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Would you have to pay taxes if you went to school in Europe and then moved back to the U.S.?

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Only if you were earning money while you were there.

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@PurpleTitan I did not use in-state and 200-250k in the same sentence so if you stay in state yes it is cheaper. OOS public tuitions can run close to 200k, with merit awards of 15k per year which seem around standard, it is still more expenseive than UCL, or are middle class kids like mine who are not eligible for finaid destined to stay in state only? You quote it is possible to graduate from NYU in 3 years, that is true, but it is still substantially more expensive than UCL, and, really how many actually do graduate in 3 years? By their own statsitics in the time it takes NYU to graduate 83% of a class, 2 whole cohorts have passed through UCL, not only are more NYU grads potentially still incurring debt, UK grads can be as much as 3 years into their careers. As I said up thread pick any UK/US equivalents the results will be the same just to different degrees.

The thread is about UK (Europe) being an attractive economic destination compared to the US… Is any of this sinking in yet?

It is absolutely true that many private colleges give out tremendous amounts of aid, it is also true those with 10’s of billions in endowments need not charge any tuition at all, and yet they are increasing their intake of ED applicants which are full freight tuition giving an advantage to those applicants with $$$$. Holistic admissions at work.

You state UK universities also take international applicants for revenue reasons, this is absolutely true, but the fact is the government strictly limits how many foreign students are allowed. Even so such tuitions are substantially less than what US OOS public and privates charge so a good deal for US kids. US privates are free to admit who they like and chose to admit internationals the vast majority on full freight, some would say at the expense of US kids, again holistic admissions at work. You are quite right they could fill an entire class with full pays from the US, but from a business point of view, optically that doesnt look very good does it?

At the end of the day parents and kids are free to chose where ever they like. If you are a smart motivated kid who wants to attend a university with a like minded cohort then you can save alot of angst and money by applying to the top schools in the UK, it is just an alternative to consider.

Thats all I have got to say about that.

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@elguapo1:

“this is absolutely true, but the fact is the government strictly limits how many foreign students are allowed”

I don’t believe that’s true. I read somewhere that the Scottish unis have a strict limit on the number of Scots/EU they may take (because the Scottish government will only subsidize so much), but they may take as many Internationals as they like.

“yet they are increasing their intake of ED applicants which are full freight tuition giving an advantage to those applicants with $$$$. Holistic admissions at work.”

Are you unaware that those colleges that promise to meet financial need also do so for kids who apply in ED? As ED is used to get kids who really want to be there and to drive down admit rates, it makes no sense for colleges to admit someone ED and then not meet need (causing them to not accept an admit).

“US privates are free to admit who they like and chose to admit internationals the vast majority on full freight, some would say at the expense of US kids, again holistic admissions at work.”

They are free to indeed, and yet the Ivies/equivalents do not. They typically fill around 15% of a class with Internationals, despite there being tremendously more demand from overseas, meaning that it is much harder for Internationals to get in to them than Americans, all else being equal.

"At the end of the day parents and kids are free to chose where ever they like. If you are a smart motivated kid who wants to attend a university with a like minded cohort then you can save alot of angst and money by applying to the top schools in the UK, it is just an alternative to consider.

Thats all I have got to say about that."

In any case, yes, the UK unis are a good alternative to consider, but you actually said more than that, and what you said showed a lack of understanding of higher education in the US.

You also make claims that are, if I am to be generous, hyperbolic. For instance, that an in-state flagship costs more than a UK uni of the same quality.
I don’t know where you are in-state for, but say your flagship is UVa:
https://sfs.virginia.edu/cost/16-17

Total in-state costs over 4 years is around $125K (give or take, depending on school).

Let’s compare with Warwick, since they are also well-esteemed and have a campus out farther away by a mid-sized city like UVa. Tuition for an econ degree is £22K+ (rising by £1-2 a year): http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/academicoffice/finance/fees/overseasfees/
They say to budget £9K a year for living expenses: https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/studentfunding/costs/
£105K over 3 years. At today’s favorable exchange rate, that’s also around $125K-$130K.

And someone who has the AP scores to get in to Warwick likely could knock some time off of UVa as well.

Look, as I have said multiple times, the UK unis are terrific options for those who want to delve deeply in to one (or a few) subjects and are also capable/willing to be educated and assessed the British way (fewer assessments/papers that have a bigger impact on your final marks and under the British Honours system rather than by GPA) though with fewer perks and support than a rich American private (or the flexibility and general education of any American college), but it’s pretty clear which people understand both UK and American higher ed and who seems to only have a caricatured understanding of American higher ed.

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A lot of the reason American schools take longer are the extraneous elective requirements that exist only to support fields that do not naturally propagate outside of academia. The basket weaving fields.

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@Mandalorian: It depends on what you consider “extraneous”. I recently heard a talk by a senior manager in my company (who was a business major in undergrad). 30+ years on, it’s the liberal arts courses he took that he finds most useful now in terms of helping him think about the issues that he has to deal with. None of the business courses.

Even if you don’t have such a long horizon, 4 years allows for flexibility for changing course (and frankly, most 17/18 year-olds don’t know what they are really good at or interested in, even if they think they do). A 3 year degree does not.

A 4 year degree also allows for double majors (you do find 3 year courses that cover 2 or more subjects in 3 years, but they are restricted to certain combinations and unis).
And finally, if you really want to graduate in 3 years or less or jump straight in to a major in the US, you can do so via AP credits or by taking classes in CC and transferring.

US higher education provides for a lot of flexibility and various ways to get an education.

To use the UVa vs. Warwick example again, 2 years of CC at home and then transfer to UVa for the last 2 years for a VA resident (and there is a guaranteed path to UVa from CC for VA residents) would be even cheaper than what a UK kid who goes to Warwick for 3 years would pay.

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One major for that difference is the Gen eds/distribution requirements covered in the first 2 year of US undergrad is usually covered at earlier educational stages like college prep HS or sometimes even middle school. It’s one reason why the Gymnasium Abitur diploma or A-Levels to an extent is regarded as the equivalent of not only a college prep HS diploma, but also the first 2 years of undergrad at a respectable/elite US college.

This is underscored by how US HS diplomas alone…including college prep ones are regarded as equivalent to diplomas below the Abitur which without further study in a special post-prep school for non-Abitur holders unless exceptions are extended such as the allowance of AP scores or universities allowing students to take special examinations to prove their bona-fides.

A large part is that the Japanese K-12 education system covers far more material and academic competition at each stage of education is fierce(One must take exams to see if one gets into academic high schools or end up on various vocational track high schools/higher vocational institutes.

Also, the “vacation” only covers the first 3 years. The last year is often occupied by students prepping for National Civil Service/private employer exams/job applications though that’s tempered somewhat by the fact the most elite civil service departments/private employers will only hire from certain elite universities or sometimes even elite departments within elite universities*.

  • Up until the late '90s/early '00s, MITI/METI not only limited hiring to UTokyo graduates, but specifically those from the Law department**(More akin to Poli-Sci) as that department has been the most selective and requires the highest national college entrance exams of all departments with the exception of Medicine(though med school aspirants aren't likely to aspire to elite Civil Service or employment with a Zaibatsu. From ~2000 onwards, they have opened up so now they're willing to broaden their applicant pool to graduates of not only other UTokyo graduates, but also other elite universities below Tokyo like Kyoto, Waseda, Keio, etc.

** While Law graduates can also attempt to become lawyers, the vast majority don’t…especially considering the national bar exam pass rate tends to hover around ~3% partially by design.

Snicker ROTFLOL!!

While NYU does offer need-based FA, IME and those of every NYU alum I know…it tends to be so miserly that it’s practically meaningless unless the lower-income student is foolhardy enough to put him/herself in decades of student loan debt.

This was the very reason it was a no-brainer decision for me to turn down the admissions offer to NYU-CAS with their miserly FA offer for my LAC which not only offered a near-full ride FA/college scholarship package, but also was far stronger academically for my academic areas of interest.

No way was NYU CAS worth putting myself into ginormous debt even given the fact their FA offer was actually “unusually generous” according to NYU alums who attended around the same period.

Especially considering if I had not turned them down, I could have easily ended up in the financial situation of one NYU CAS alum friend who is currently over half a million dollars in debt from 2 years at NYU CAS and 3 years of law school before graduating into the 2008 recession/implosion of the US legal industry.

And that was even after he managed to land a lawyer job when the vast majority of his law school classmates ended up un/underemployed…albeit one making so little he wasn’t able to service his NYU CAS/Law school loans.