College in the US: Is it Worth it?

Higher education in the US is becoming increasingly complicated and expensive. The rising costs of studying for an undergraduate degree and the increasingly realistic option of studying abroad have led to more and more American students moving overseas for college. Should internationals living in the US consider sending their own children abroad for college as well? Higher Education? by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus — one of the most widely reviewed non-fiction books of 2011 — has brought the debate on the future of higher education in the US into the spotlight. Its subtitle, How colleges are wasting our money and failing our kids and what we can do about it, makes clear the authors’ main question: “Are families getting good value for such an enormous investment?”And be assured, it is a big investment. The numbers can be eye-watering:

• Yearly costs of private colleges has risen to around $50,000 per year (including room and board).
• Public college tuition for in-state residents range from $4,794 (Florida Atlantic) to $15,250 (Penn State) per year (not including room and board).
• Tuition at both public and private colleges has more than doubled in real dollars compared to a generation ago.
• Higher education in the US is a $440 billion industry.

A recent article in the New York Times highlighted the growing trend of US schools giving preference to international students over local applicants. International students bring $21 billion a year to the national economy, according the Institute of International Education, and the continuing good performance of US colleges in global university league tables may increase international students’ demand for college enrollment here even further.All of this, however, doesn’t reflect the problems faced by all but the very wealthy. Academic tuition in the US is notoriously high. For the 2011 – 2012 academic year, a full-time undergraduate student in New York University’s College of Arts and Sciences could expect to pay well over $20,000. Add to this the cost of day-to-day living and accommodations for those who live away from home, which can easily double the price, and the cost can seem prohibitive.So is studying abroad for anyone living in the US a viable option?Charles Kenny of Foreign Policy Magazine believes so. Writing in the magazine earlier this year, he explained:

As the recession bites into American families' incomes and makes the job search for recent graduates that much trickier, an increasing number of people are beginning to question the cost of attending colleges and universities in the United States. ...There is a simple answer to such concerns: Shop around for a better deal. If junior is willing to travel a little bit further — to colleges overseas — the world offers some incredible bargains for quality tertiary education, with the option of free language and culture immersion thrown in. Tuition costs for foreign students at some of the best universities in Asia, Europe, and Africa can be as low as $4,000, well below half the median cost of college in the United States.

The stark fact is that tuition at many overseas colleges is less than tuition at US colleges. For example, a three-year undergraduate bachelor’s degree at theUniversity of Oxford will set you back £13,200 ($20,300) per year — a favorable rate even when the cost of flights is factored in. And Canada's McGill University is generally rated above Duke University in North Carolina by world ranking tables, but its tuition can be as little as half that of its U.S. rival.Though students might hesitate to move abroad and study at a lesser-known foreign university, the benefits of doing so may count for years to come in an increasingly global job market. Increased international perspective, improved language skills, and cultural and social awareness are increasingly in-demand “soft skills” that can stand any candidate in good stead.Heather Cronin-Conaway, originally from Chicago, Illinois, chose to study in Bristol, England, for her undergraduate degree in history. In part, her decision was influenced by the makeup of US and UK degrees.In an e-mail she wrote:

I had been interested in Medieval History since I was about 16 and I knew I wanted to work in that field. While there are some [undergraduate] medieval history programs in the US, you can't focus as exclusively [on the subject] until a graduate program. I chose the history program at Bristol mainly based on the faculty and the courses available.

For many, the assumption is that studying abroad will be more expensive than in the US, but this isn’t always the case, as she found out:

I knew getting any sort of substantial scholarship would be difficult, so I would be stuck with student loans to pay US college tuition. I liked that going to university in England would cut down my undergraduate program to three years. All the schools I had looked at in the US were private, high-end colleges with the tuition fees to match. The cost factor was definitely a pro for going abroad. Comparatively, I saved about $10-12,000 per year in tuition, and living costs were pretty similar in either country.

And the US, though still a leader in terms of high-ranking colleges, may soon find itself increasingly isolated. The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development published an impressive 500-page report suggesting that the number of students studying abroad worldwide climbed from 2.1 million to over 3.5 million between 2000 and 2009, but that US undergraduates made up barely 0.4 percent of that global total. The US does continue to attract the majority of students who chose to leave their own country, though this trend may also be in decline.Thus, for now, US students tend not to study abroad. Does it matter? Charles Kenny puts it simply:

That's bad news for America: not least, a limited number of people who have spent time living abroad helps account for the country's dire lack of polyglots. Only about 14 percent of Americans claim they can speak Spanish well enough to hold a conversation — a surprisingly low number considering that 16 percent of the country reports being of Hispanic or Latino origin. A little over 4 percent can have a chat in French, and a little less than 3 percent German — and if we move onto Mandarin or Urdu, we're talking fractions of a percent. As well as being a potential national security issue, a denuded flow of students in and out of the United States reduces the country's ability to trade, invest, and exchange technology internationally.

For internationals living in New York City, there are other factors to consider when deciding whether to send your children to study abroad. Do you want them to remain firmly in touch with your culture? Are there friends and family abroad that can offer accommodations and introduce your kids to your childhood town? Perhaps you want to cement their language skills before they return to the US and build a life here. For many international parents, encouraging children to study abroad can include a mixture of financial and cultural incentives.There are also educational factors to be considered. Is the American approach to college-level education different enough from your home country that you’d rather avoid it? Would gaining a European baccalaureate or a British single-subject bachelor’s be a strength or a weakness in the US? Recent reports on Japanese students who studied abroad before returning to work in Japan found that the decision to attend a foreign university has been detrimental to their careers. Could the same apply to the US?In addition, missing out on alumni networks if you choose to forgo the US college system may work against you in the future. Missing out on relevant job placements and internships with US companies could also prove difficult.For Heather Cronin-Conaway, though, the benefits do outweigh the setbacks:

I loved living in the UK, and I feel I had a lot more memorable experiences compared to friends who stayed local. Any regrets I have are related more to specific circumstances happening within my university opposed to going abroad all together. I loved it enough I stayed for a post-graduate degree and two more years working in London afterwards.As to recommending that path, it depends. It takes a certain mindset and openness to change to adapt to a completely different country and lifestyle. There's a bit of culture shock regardless of how similar the two countries can be. I would recommend it more to someone who wants something specific from their education, such as my medieval English history specialization. There's a lot to deal with beyond just the cost factor, so I wouldn't say the savings should be the only reason to go abroad. But it was definitely worth it.

When choosing to study at home or abroad, there are many factors to be considered. With college-level education fast becoming a prerequisite to any and all entry level positions in the workplace, the choice for international students nowadays is not whether to attend college, but rather where.