Europe is the New Ivy League (For Rejects on the Cheap!)
Yesterday the New York Times published an exposé, of sorts, bolstering the new trend of foregoing the Ivy League admissions for cheaper, ask-fewer-questions colleges overseas. Top schools in the U.K. and Canada offer world-class educations preloaded with neat things like conversations in foreign languages and cobblestone streets. Apparently, kids also get to skip the crappy American traditions of doing well on SATs and writing personal statements—not to mention getting cured of a nasty case of of a plagiarism.
To high school students considering six-figure debt versus five-figure debt, the move to Europe’s gothic arches and prestigious-sounding names abroad makes buckets of sense. (Reference to the global economic crisis implied.) As the Ivies reaffirm their commitment to increasing financial aid and eliminating debt, however, applying abroad really just seems like an easy way into tweed-wearing university towns. Club meetings at pubs and potential for Old World extravagance run a close second to sounding “original” when telling high school classmates your postgrad plans.
So is the faux-Ivy, go-abroad-for-a-new-accent trend really all it’s cracked up to be? It all depends whether higher education should be what the title implies or just a ticket to drinking pints scot-free at 18. The whole Ivy League thing really is getting a bit tired for everyone (The New Yorker included?), but why not do it for the right reasons? Ivy League educations have never been more expensive or exclusive as they are now weirdly accessible to Europhiles and free to those who read the YDN.
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December 3rd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Harvard’s endowment lost $8 billion. I can’t help but laugh.
December 3rd, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Yeah I don’t know how this was overlooked by y’all
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=525668
I wonder how much Columbia has lost..They just posted as of June 30th, 2008 their endowment feel about 2%, but I know they cooked the numbers a bit to put it in favorable light for their alums. The amount is probably a lot more especially since most of their holdings are probably in NYC.
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2008/11/20/over-last-fiscal-year-columbias-endowment-falls
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:22 pm
What a poorly-written article.
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:38 pm
What grammatically incorrect comment. I mean “grammatically-incorrect.”
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Add the article. “What a….”
December 4th, 2008 at 9:33 am
That’s not a grammatical error, fool. That’s a typographical mistake. But nice try.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:50 am
Oh Lord, I’ve made a dreadful mistake with my life. DAMMIT.
May 14th, 2009 at 10:08 am
This article is at best racist…
Let me tell you one thing… most universities in Europe do not accept US students to enroll for their first year unless they have already successfully completed two years of university education… guess why?
I have personally studied at a minor german engineering school for mechanical engineering and seen what people study in Stanford. It’s just the same level, not any better and for much more money.
I know so many stories of US interns in Europe which showed the most complete lack of skills that I would be careful if I were you before writing a “euro-bashing” article.
I also know people who told math for people entering engineering school in the US and had to laugh about the level people reach in the US at the end of high school.
And believe me, no spring break here or anything like it. I and many more spent countless nights on complex calculations during years.
I am not exactly sure how the situation in “socially engineered sciences” is but I can tell you that what you describe does not apply to hard sciences.
Off course no North American would ever want to try studying science at a European University. Indians, Chinese, etc. however study sciences in large numbers in Europe.