This is not a column about study abroad – the well-established ritual of spending up to a year of an undergraduate education away from a home institution. This is about whether to do the totality of one’s degree outside the United States.
The pros are pretty obvious: We talk a lot in the U.S. about how much college learning happens outside the classroom. Studying at a foreign university amplifies that, as you immerse yourself in another culture and meet people from backgrounds vastly different from your own. Maybe a school overseas has programs that line up better with your child’s academic aspirations. Maybe your child thinks a degree from a school abroad will broaden their professional horizons. Maybe your child feels they have better odds of getting into a prestigious school overseas than at home.
Maybe. But there’s a lot to ponder. Let’s talk about finances, language, course of study, support, family and culture.
Many foreign universities cost less than the sticker price on an American college education. But keep in mind that relatively few students pay full freight in the United States and you’re almost certainly not eligible for financial aid abroad.
The first step is to get familiar with the quirks of the programs your child is considering, since these can vary tremendously across countries and schools. Especially: Is all of the instruction in English? Or do the schools require fluency in another language? I’m a big believer in having basic fluency in the local language when living abroad. Yes, most Parisians under 60 speak at least a smattering of English. But you won’t get as much out of your life there if you don’t speak enough French to get around in your daily life.
By “course of study,” I mean several things. To start, are you and your child comfortable with a three-year program? That’s a typical run for a student at Oxford or Cambridge. In some countries, students begin to specialize in particular subjects in high school and consequently arrive at university with a more developed base of knowledge than your typical American kid.
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In fact, most European universities require students to apply to a particular field and then study only that once enrolled. American liberal arts schools give you a lot of freedom. You typically don’t need to declare a major until your sophomore year, and it’s not uncommon to get the advice “take the professor, not the class” – even if the topic isn’t your cup of tea, the legendarily good instructor means you’ll get a lot out of the course. And most schools require students to take electives outside of their academic focus.
That kind of freedom is rarer abroad, though Canada generally offers more of it than schools on the other side of the pond. (And some American institutions, like my alma mater Columbia, partner with foreign schools so that after two years on each campus, a student can earn bachelor’s degrees from both places.)
There’s also a different attitude toward student support. When my family toured college campuses, every school we saw had writing tutors for the essay-challenged – and every other school seemed to have emotional support puppies. You can mostly forget about that abroad, where the sink-or-swim model and self-reliance are the norm.
This lower level of school-based support comes on top of the dislocation students can feel from moving to a different culture far from home. Some of a student’s natural support structure is family and friends. Going to Europe or Asia puts a lot more distance – and time zones – between your student and you than even a cross-coastal school. Visiting across borders is logistically more challenging. And that can feel isolating (for your child and for you).
Why did I put “culture” on my list of things to consider? Many foreign universities do not offer a traditional “campus” with guaranteed housing. Social norms can vary. A friend’s daughter who wanted to study in Britain didn’t do her homework and ultimately transferred to an American school, where she had an easier time finding “her people”
A happy ending. But only after some struggles, which I would like to spare you and your child.
Olivier Knox is the son of college professors and worked in admissions as a student at his dream school. He has a 100% success rate guiding the next generation of applicants into their first-choice colleges (sample size: one son). Reach Olivier at oknox@usnews.com.
