Globalization is affecting higher education as well:
With higher education fast becoming a global commodity, universities worldwide — many of them in Canada and England — are competing for the same pool of affluent, well-qualified students, and more American students are heading overseas not just for a semester abroad, but for their full degree program…
For American students, a university like St. Andrews offers international experience and prestige, at a cost well below the tuition at a top private university in the United States. But it provides a narrower, more specialized course of studies, less individual attention from professors — and not much of an alumni network to smooth entry into the workplace when graduates return to the United States. For overseas universities, international students help diversify campuses in locations as remote as coastal Fife, home of St. Andrews.
People can study the humanities, the theories of international relations, and eighteenth-century French literature anywhere, so it is logical that students — and their parents — are starting to make cost the top priority. Why would someone choose to obtain a bachelor’s degree from Boston University, my alma mater, for more than $200,000 when the United States is facing a severe recession and the dollar is becoming a stronger currency again? Here is a list of some foreign universities and the total cost for a four-year degree:
- University of St. Andrew’s in Scotland (mentioned in the Times article) — roughly $70,000 after converting currencies
- Tel Aviv University in Israel– $62,400
- McGill University in Canada — roughly $112,000
American students can gain international experience from top-level schools, and perhaps learn another language as well, for half of the cost (or less) of attending many universities in the United States. Colleges in America will not be able to compete. More and more American high-school students will be studying abroad in the future, and a higher percentage of students at U.S. universities will be foreigners who come from rich families and still want a name-brand “American education.” The only exception will be in fields including law, business, and medicine, where specific universities are known as leaders in those areas.
Globalization will affect more and more aspects of our daily lives, even in a time of financial turmoil. Education will be no exception.
