We are blessed to have so many great schools.
Honestly, every spring when kids ask for advice on whether they should choose, say, Bowdoin, Dartmouth, or Rice… all I can think is, “Flip two coins…”. hehe
But then I remember – one of them will be the best fit for the kid, so we help them through that process.
Yes, and as always the systems are sufficiently different that analogies are always going to be imperfect. Indeed, the constituent colleges play a significant role for undergraduate students at both Oxford and Cambridge, further making analogies very difficult. I analogized them to Berkeley, but you could also analogize them to the Claremont Colleges . . . we just do things differently.
From a practical standpoint, though–the government sets the tuition for Oxbridge (and most UK universities), and it is currently 9,250 GBP for UK citizens, under $12K at today’s exchange rates. And there is also a government loan program for up to the full fee. So that of course is way less than full tuition at our nominally comparable private colleges.
For “overseas” Oxbridge students, it depends on the course, but typical humanities and social science courses at Oxford are currently 35,080 GBP (about $45K), sciences 44,240 GBP ($57K).
So that is why at least from that perspective, it is sort of like the in-state/out-of-state situation at our public universities, understanding the whole UK is “in-state” for Oxbridge.
And then, say, Scottish universities have an even lower rate for Scottish students (1820 GBP, about $2300), then the 9250 GBP for other UK students, then again higher fees for overseas students. Like, Edinburgh is 24,500 GBP (around $31.5K) for most humanities and social sciences, and 32,200 GBP (over $41K) for sciences.
By the way, Scottish undergraduate degrees are usually four years, English usually three (unless you add a masters), so total cost of degree is actually very similar between Edinburgh and Oxbridge for overseas students, but for non-Scottish UK students the English degrees are cheaper by 25% (although sometimes students can qualify for second-year entry to Scottish universities).
So you can see why Scottish universities seem particularly interested in marketing themselves to US applicants. And yet if your alternative would be full tuition at a selective private college, one can still see the appeal.
As do other countries - except in the U.S. they depend on aggressive marketing, sports teams and branding to draw in customers, so there is more awareness.
Elsewhere they just “serve” the intended purpose.
And almost a million come to the US every year to study. Seems a fair number of foreign families are also searching for “fit” despite their home country’s options.
I don’t know, man – I know other countries have some good schools too, but do they really compare to the sheer number of great ones we have? Even if we did a “great schools per capita” comparison, and only looked at universities (not even considering LACs…), we have like half of the top 100 universities in the world. That’s impressive, to me. Of course, any ranking is only as good as its formula, but multiple world U rankings show similar numbers of American schools among the top 100, 200, etc. (though their exact placement obviously differs…)
I didn’t mean to pick a fight or thump my chest with my comment above – just meant to imply that we have a lot to be thankful for, in terms of both the variety and number of high-quality options in the US.
Of course - which brings us back to the topic of how “best fit” is an individual definition.
Are they guided by seeking “superior” education, or are other economic criteria primarily defining fit for them, e.g., gaining entrance into the U.S. job market, and then residency, easier access to career in U.S. multi-nationals, etc.
I am not sure this is correct. The number of current foreign students is about a million.
Also, UK has 600-700k foreign university students.
In Germany, the number of foreign students for the 21/22 semester was 440,564 - except few people in the U.S. (outside of academic circles) would have heard of those Universities with traditions and renown that often long predate the Ivy’s – again, because they’re not forced to waste educational funds on P/R.
@Darcy123 Global English language competency certainly also plays into which countries will be more attractive to foreign students, than others.
That used to be the general recommendation here in Canada too but at some point that stopped being the expectation. I’m not sure why or when it changed but it’s not that unusual anymore for students attending top schools for undergrad here to stay at the same institution for grad school.
I am actually talking about a master’s program, but it’s not as straight forwards because here in Canada while master’s degrees are terminal degrees like in the US, unlike in the US they’re also typically required before applying for a PhD. As a result research/thesis-based masters programs, like the one I was referring to, are far more common and it’s possible just like in Europe/UK/AUS, to do your BSc, MSc, and PhD at 3 different universities or all at the same one (or any combination therein).
In any case this specific program I was talking about is a little bit unique as while it is a standalone research/thesis-based MSc, it’s designed more like a US style integrated MS/PhD whereby students admitted to the MSc are expected to continue to the PhD (and according to their website about 70% do).