Anyone looking at unis out of UK to save on fees/costs? Or lower grades?

[kittybelle]

But with similar ranking/status? Have come across this recently with friends dc - going to Cyrus to do medicine and Bulgaria to do dentistry....

wow - do the DCs have any prior connection to the countries chosen?

I do know of people considering Dutch universities for their DC, because it is apparently much cheaper, and the courses are all taught in English.

Someone on the big 2014 UCAS thread was looking at Ireland. It sounded very interesting and I plan to explore the idea for DS2 next year. Holland do some courses taught in English and the fees are much lower.

Leeds2 by no means all the Dutch courses are taught in English.

Most undergraduate courses in Holland are still in Dutch. Many of those which are in English are liberal arts degrees at university colleges; these are fairly new and don't have strong reputation yet.

I think in general it is a case of caveat emptor. The fees are cheaper but need to be paid up front. The overall funding per student is lower in Holland than in the UK, and this is usually reflected in the quality of the education. Students won't get as many pieces of work marked or get as many tutorials; there's no culture of providing students with complete printed lecture notes; students don't have personal academic tutors etc etc. Being high in international league tables for a particular subject is definitely no guarantee of good undergraduate teaching: top researchers are often exempt from teaching and PhD students are not recruited from the undergraduate program (so undergraduate standards don't relate to research standards). Educational standards are quite variable and there are less rigorous procedures for ensuring quality control than in the UK.

The Irish system is a beautifully simple application system. Your dc stands a much better chance if they do four A2's. Go onto the CAO site & don't be put off by the explanation as it is much nicer to apply via CAO than UCAS. There is a small fee.

Your dc lists the top ten or so Irish courses & come results day a computer calculates how many points your dc has gained & which one your dc gets an unconditional offer from. So there are no conditional offers & no personal statements (yay!)

Unfortunately, there is no point my dd2 applying as she is only doing three A2's, so wouldn't be able to gather enough points.

No the families have no connection with countries. Think it is common for Dentistry and Medicine because they are so competitive here. Someone else's kid has just returned from Hungary where he qualified as a dentist and is now practicing in the UK. Someone also mentioned that Germany was a popular choice for medics....I suppose it is just the same as us having international students here in the UK ....and if you think about the number of OS Drs we have needed to recruit from abroad -- maybe we should be looking at supporting the education of home grown talent - educated in the EU! I have no idea how many go from the UK

Personally, I think it's a false economy, and that in HE, you get what you pay for.

If you look at the European experience, it is largely one of very large classes, very little personal attention and guidance, and most undergrads take a lot longer to complete their degrees.

And if university is about creating networks of future colleagues, where does that leave a non-Dutch speaker who will go back to the UK after 4-5 years?

UK universities are amongst the best in the world, without exception. At £9k pa, they are cheap.

And if you value education simply by lower fees ... well, words fail a little.

I hate the English fees regime, but it does suggest what it actually costs, and how we should be valuing a truly world-class system.

Chimney, that is a bit harsh!

1. Students have always gone to Ireland. In my day Catholics to UCD and posh boys to Trinity. Plus lots from Northern Ireland. It's certainly seen a a viable alternative to Britain especially for medicine where, after all 60% of applicants to UK Universities wont get places. (You do need top grades though, and 4 A levels.)

1. Universities across Europe are improving their offer. For example we know a student who looked very seriously at Holland (Maastricht?) for product design. In the end he stayed in the UK but the Dutch course had some genuinely attractive features. I understand that several well regarded German Universities are looking to expand the amount of undergraduate teaching in English. In terms of postgrad, looking only at economics/management, INSEAD, Stockholm, Barcelona, etc hold their own against many British competitors.

1. We know several London expatriate children who will return to their home countries for University. French, Swedish etc. Partly a chance to reconnect with their native culture, but in some cases parents genuinely think the University education is better. Presumably people like what they know.

1. Increasing numbers are going overseas to study medicine and dentistry. Places like Bulgaria, Hungary and Malta. Like OP I am curious. The UK is cutting places yet apparently does not train enough doctors. You can get a place elsewhere with lower grades, and will receive a qualification recognised throughout the EU. However does that mean it is easy to get a job in the UK.

Upthechimney. They don't just apply abroad because of fees.

Sometimes it is because they have visited somewhere & it really appeals or with others they want the adventure abroad / ability to improve a language & experience another culture. It is also a useful backup for some when they think they will be left without a place in the UK application system.

The UK system is excellent, but other countries have good systems as well.

I was responding to the OP, which asked specifically about "lower fees" and "lower entry grades." It's there in the thread title & OP. Not harsh at all - just responding to the OP.

I agree that other reasons for studying elsewhere in the EU or in the USA can be very constructive.

Ah right - sorry misunderstood you. Although fees can be a really big concern too. They do worry me a lot.

Anyone looking at studying abroad will have to take into account not only the fees, but living expenses.

UK students don't get loans for living expenses if their entire course is outside the UK, so it's either a commercial loan or someone will have to stump up the cash.

You're looking at roughly 1,000 euros a month in Western Europe, unless you're very lucky. Cheaper in Eastern Europe. Mind you, even Hungary would be around 700 euros a month.

Good point. I gather that various money advice sites suggest that the current arrangement for fees + living expenses is one of the cheapest investments you can ever make.

University education isn't like buying a fridge. It's an investment in yourself.

UK universities are amongst the best in the world, without exception.
^^
Hmm, I think this statement needs very careful qualification.

SOME UK universities are truly excellent, absolutely world class, and (research output aside) combine rigorous and challenging courses with the teaching support that allows students to graduate with well-grounded knowledge in the discipline. A student with a 1st class degree from one of these universities can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with top graduates from any of the world's elite universities.

SOME UK universities (incl some with very high NSS ratings) are downright poor, and run courses that are spoon-fed to students in a way that doesn't offer any intellectual challenge and leaves graduates short-changed because they have never have to develop any independent skills. These universities get away with it because most of their techniques (e.g., giving students their exact exam questions in advance, along with sample answers) are invisible to external examiners. A graduate with a first class degree from one of these universities is often of the academic standard that would probably get a mid-2.2 degree in one of the excellent universities.

Most UK universities are in between the two - not terrible but not brilliant either. Trying to be rigorous but afraid of challenging students too much on case it reflects negative

...negatively on NSS scores.

A random uni in the UK is likely to be fine for undergraduate teaching, but not stellar. A random uni from Ireland or the Netherlands is likely to be at the same or higher standard because the NSS-style fear of challenging students is not endemic.

(All the above from extensive first-hand experience, alas).

It is concerning that students who don't have the required grades for such as medicine would go to eastern europe to study because they grades they require are lower. There is a very good reason why a British medical degree is so highly thought of and it's to do with the standards we require.
i was 'treated' by an Eastern European doctor who did not know that the ECG machine actually had to be plugged into the mains electricity.

Yes, geeka my statement does need to be considered carefully. In comparison with the best systems in western Europe, there will be variations. But my point was a global one -- if you look at UK universities in the light of say, what's available in the US (and I've taught there) then there's a different picture.

The thing is, that UK universities are all subject to national standards and the inspection/maintenance of those standards externally & internally. THings like: the External Examiner system, second marking (not something they do in the US, Australia, Canada, periodic quality reviews logged with the QAA, the national research evaluation exercise, the new systems for allocating PhD scholarships & funding, and so on.

As academics we might complain about all these systems, but they do mean that we can say that UK universities are amongst the best in the world.

Would any potential applicant to an EU or US or other world university know where to start to check these things? I think the NSS is a completely rubbish survey (my statistics training from 25 years ago, as outdated as it is, tells me that!) but it does give a national measure for comparison. And so on ...

At least, these are the things I tell myself when I'm suffering through yet another 'governance & quality assurance' briefing

I have extensive experience of both UK and Dutch universities and I don't agree that a random Dutch university undergraduate course would be at the same or higher level as a UK one.

As upthechimney says, the UK is at least subject to national standards and inspection. The Netherlands isn't. In the university I used to teach at (top 50 in the world, even higher for my subject), it was common practice for professors to set very easy exams so that the student feedback would be positive. There is no way these exams would get through the UK system. There was also no scrutiny of the curriculum. I have known distinguished professors completely change the content of their courses to suit them, meaning that the students don't learn the topics they should be learning to get a degree in that subject. (Here there would be a minimum core content for a science or engineering degree.)

Another basic problem is that Dutch universities are obliged to take students who pass the pre-university high school diploma, regardless of their marks. In practice this means that you have students who would have gotten 3Ds at A level on the same courses as those who would have gotten 3A*s. The people at the lower end are encouraged to drop out as soon as possible but the people at the top end are short-changed by the fact that you have to teach to the average student.

Standards also vary a great deal across departments in the same university in Holland, since there isn't a hierarchy between universities as in the UK or US. So while one department might be world-leading (rivalling Harvard or Cambridge) another might be not even internationally competitive, hiring its own PhD students to be full professors within a year of finishing their PhDs (below the bottom end of UK universities). Yet from the outside it would be hard to find out this information.

I do agree that the NSS scores give a very misleading picture and often punish departments which stick to decent standards. It's well known in my own field that certain "highly respected" universities are teaching at a very low level and award a lot of undeserved firsts but their NSS scores are high, they are perceived as the places to go if Oxbridge doesn't work out etc etc. Not sure what can be done about that.

I agree that, globally, UK universities are good (on my pick-a-random-university method!). My comments are definitely restricted to the places I mentioned.

But my concern is that the vast array of checks and re-checks in the UK system - so exam scrutiny, second marking, external examiners, QAA-style evaluations, etc. - lull people into a false sense of security that they actually achieve higher standards. They don't, really. They're shockingly poorly-validated methods of establishing quality.

So for every Dutch prof setting too-easy exams (and some individuals have a real reputation for this ), I can point to many academics in the UK doing the exact same thing despite all the checks we have here. Sometimes it's an aberrant individual in an otherwise rigorous degree programme, sometimes it's an institutional culture .

No easy solutions, I'm afraid. Just that I don't think UK undergraduate degrees are all that... If my dc were of university age, I'd be encouraging non-UK applications (though probably not to Bulgaria, no: am a little familiar with the system there also).

If my teenager was very determined on medicine or dentistry but couldn't get on a UK course I'd look seriously in other countries, too.

Given that most NHS staff & a lot of dentists come from all over the world and all kinds of institutions, that's proof enough for me that a lot of the training out there is indeed good enough.

My nephew who has dual US/British citizen ship did first degree in USA ( liberal arts) and then decided to be a doctor. So he has spent 5 years studying in Romania on a course populated by wholly international students (mainly EU). Taught in English and acceptable qualification for entry into internship in USA Eire (where he will go) or UK. It cost a lot less than in USA or UK and standard is the same. His mum. ( my sister) went to uni and checked it all out as she is a paediatrician in USA and was impressed. They looked elsewhere but chose Romania. She studied medicine in USA Canada and Belgium 35 years ago so it's been happening a long time! Incidentally my nephew is now fluent in Romanian and is engaged to a local girl in her 3rd year on same course

Wow overthemill that is an inspiring story.

Achieving the grades does not guarantee a uni place in the UK for medicine/dentistry - it is just a numbers game - supply and demand....as it is expensive to run by Unis - so probably a poor ROI.

And it seems to make sense to me that if someone really wants to do this career and when there is not the capacity to train them in the UK but there are plenty of jobs back in the UK once qualified - then do it!

Money is important especially if you are considering a long 5yr course and as a parent who will have 4 at Uni at the same time it is a big consideration for me.

There are plenty of quality stamped courses in the UK that are miss-sold imho with respect to employment. Law for example -- because it is popular (and cheap to run by he Unis). The number of uni places "sold" is over x4 the number of job vacancies (17k law graduates will chase 4k jobs)....

My back of the fag packet calculation is that a degree costs you approx £100k (£30k fees, £30k living costs and £40k lost earnings) -- if your aim is to get a better job/career than if you didnt go to uni then you need to look really closely at the costs and ROI.

Also I work for a large global blue chip in the UK and we were unable to recruit the quality and quantity of graduates that we needed for our UK based (but globally focused) grad training schemes from UK unis so we directly approach a select list of unis in EU....so my experience as an employer is that an expensive UK degree does not always deliver.....