<p>I have no skin in the game here, but I know many of you might be interested, so here are some excerpts / summaries from a newspaper article in The Independent I read last week:</p>
<p>Fees at British universities are going up "significantly" so that the cost of a British university education is about 3,000 pounds a year now. (About 6,000 per year.] </p>
<p>As a result, many of the Ivies are reporting upwards of 65% increase in applications from British students. "Ivy League institutions are increasingly targeting British schools as they look to boost their international intake." The Ivies are marketing to state schools in Britain, speaking to "students from modest backgrounds", with the pitch that scholarships at the Ivies make them potentially more affordable than the British universities. [Of course, this was from a speech the Princeton representative made to the Wellington School, which charges 24,000 pounds, or around $50,000 annually !!] The article did not go too much into the non-Ivies.</p>
<p>The last part of the article ended up saying that Harvard, Yale and Princeton had a "bidding war" of money to compete for Euan Blair, son of the PM. "Despite having an unexceptional academic record", Blair was offered a scholarship of $100,000 (not clear if that's annual). [Well, I'm glad they're targeting students of modest backgrounds. . . . .]</p>
<p>I'm ambivalent about this, and I'm curious about what the rest of you think. Should US universities be targeting international students? Should our tax-subsidized universities have bidding wars for celebrity children with undistinguised academic abilities? Do the Ivies really offer only need-based scholarships? Or is this an effective way to increase the diversity and global reach to enrich our elite university campuses?</p>
<p>Well, international students would bring real diversity to a student body and not so much of the sham, PC variety that exists today. </p>
<p>Having had a German exchange high school (Gymnasium) student stay with us recently, we learned that there may be changes afoot in other socialist educational systems in Europe. For German nationals the state supported universities have been nearly free, but they may be rethinking that policy. I don't know the motivation behind the change. I think it came in part because of the financial strain that a cradle-to-grave social system represents when birth rates drop, but also because attending university became a way of life for students with some taking 6, 8 or more years to finish. Given the unemployment rate in Germany, being a perpetual student looked pretty attractive. Whether the fees they are talking about charging will be enough to make some look across the pond for higher ed is not known.</p>
<p>How did they justify the scholarships to Blair? Is the no-merit-aid policy only for American students? Did they consider the son of the British Prime Minister in need of need-based fin aid? Were they alumni association scholarships and such?</p>
<p>
[quote]
"Euan had many fine offers, and we are pleased he has chosen Yale to pursue his graduate studies," Yale spokeswoman Helaine Klasky said Tuesday, confirming that Blair will pursue Yale's two-year master's degree program in international relations.</p>
<p>Blair's admittance to Yale's graduate school has been a subject of interest in Great Britain since it was published that Blair, 22, was admitted to top-rated programs at both Harvard and Yale despite having received average grades at Bristol University and experiencing a much-publicized run-in with the law.</p>
<p>And when newspapers reported that Yale had also awarded Blair a $92,000 full tuition scholarship to study in New Haven, some commentators asked why the financial support was needed by the wealthy Blair family and questioned whether the prime minister had used his position to secure an elite education for his son. But others have argued that Blair's acceptance was likely for the right reasons -- he has a background in politics, performed reasonably well academically, and may add to the diversity and experiences of Yale's student body.</p>
<p>Though Klasky said it is University policy to never comment on a particular student's award, she noted that the University Fellowship is given purely on the basis of merit to anywhere from one-third to one-half of the 30 to 35 students admitted to the program each year.</p>
<p>"It is typical for graduate students in IR to receive awards," she said. "Typical levels of [University Fellowships] are half tuition, full tuition, or full tuition with a stipend. This is the primary source of support for IR students."
<p>The US invests 3 times the money that the Uk and EU do. UK science students would be mad NOT to make an application to the US.</p>
<p>Still, other nations have no clue that Americans are happily spending upwards of L90,000 pounds per teritary degree. The Brits are moaning about spending L9,000 pounds for goodness sakes. Half tuition grants will put them into apoplexy!</p>
<p>The potsmoking Blair aside, I doubt Brits will arrive in droves. Perhaps we shouldn't be so cruel about the fortunes of young Blair. Look how well Maggy Thatcher's son turned out.</p>
<p>From an article about Imperial University, Kensington, London:
[quote]
Imperial took almost a third of its 11,490 students this year from overseas 1,133 from China alone. Sykes said Imperial could be filled overnight with students from China and Singapore. They come better prepared in basic skills such as mathematics and pay the full economic cost. Overseas students pay about £100,000 for their degrees when you include living costs, he said. British students are lossmakers. Sykes reckons it costs about £16m a year to subsidise them.
<p>The reality is that undergraduate Chinese students bring in billions of dollars but their overall graduation rate abroad is not great--due to poor English skills. Imagine writing a college level paper in Mandarin and you get the drift.</p>
<p>The brightest of the bright stay in China--or go to HYP or Oxbridge. The others tend to be wealthy second tier students who cannot gain entrance to thte top tier universities in China. Graduate students are more of a success story.</p>