I’m an American AMA about US universities

[Dilemoth]

I know US universities/colleges have become more popular and would like to help if possible.

Context: Have children in high school in the southeast part of the US applying to college soon.

Many ordinary British students won’t get much fee reduction. DD was offered a place at a private university and overall we were looking at £250,000 over 4 years. She did get a small scholarship but there’s little available for Brits at most USA universities. We know very rich Dc who have been. There are needs blind universities and others who might welcome overseas students by offering few reductions.. It’s not always easy if they are not offering what you want to study though.

As for degrees being too expensive here? They are a fraction of USA charges. We probably need to reduce degrees and increase practical courses with work. More apprenticeships need to be for 18 year olds. Not for career changing adults.

AP tests are roughly like AS levels used to be (remember them?) in content coverage and difficulty. The US system (both in highschool and university) is much more like the Scottish approach (more subjects studied at a range of levels) than that in the rest of the UK!

I work in a school, where I help students apply to US universities. It's always frustrating when they get good offers but not enough financial help to make it possible. The few who end up going are nearly always on major scholarships for a particular sport, or music, or drama; in my experience, it's very difficult to get money (as an overseas student) for being good at academic subjects.

Several of the Ivies including Harvard now offer generous financial aid, including to international students. Harvard has needs blind admissions. After that families of students with an income less than $100,000 never write a check. It is all taken care of through scholarships, grants and loans, possibly a bit of on-campus employment.

I input a fake profile into the Harvard financial aid guide last year. I was the eldest of three from a German family with an income of $175,000. Modest assets beyond the family home and retirement savings, which Harvard does not count. My total annual costs were just north of $80,000 and my family’s share was just north of $29,000. The guide is rough but I found this impressive.

Other Ivies and elite four year colleges have similar programmes but the degree to which they support international students varies. The Fulbright Foundation are experts

Not just Ivies, but it tends to be extremely competitive American unis that offer aid to international students

I always point students to the Fulbright website, which is great!

@poetryandwine, you're right that the places with financial aid are the very rich and super-competitive ones. My experience, which might not be universal, has been that candidates who are good enough to get an offer there also get offers from top-notch UK universities; and if professional accreditation is important to them (as it often is) then unless they're offered a full scholarship to the US, then the UK wins out when they make their decisions. Also, the loan system over here is easy to access (and pretty reasonable in repayment terms compared to anything in the US).

@poetryandwine is correct about generous financial assistance being available to all international students.

DS2 is off to Princeton this year. The total cost to us as a family for his first year will be less than if he was in the UK. We're fairly well off (put 3 children through private school in London) but eligible for generous aid because we have two other children at university and our housing equity and pension pots aren't deemed to be relevant.

This was for Princeton and was the same for Yale and Harvard.

@HoneyMobster That's amazing, congratulations to your DS!

Thank you! We're delighted and he's very excited.

Universities are not funded by tuition.

Private universities are funded by enormous endowments. These endowments were often created by founders (eg, Carnegie Mellon) and built on by massive donations from alumni over the years.

State universities have endowments too, often massive. They are also funded by the taxpayers in their state.

There are about 66 extremely selective universities and liberal arts colleges that offer to meet up to 100% of demonstrated financial need of all admitted students during their undergrad years. Most other universities offer financial aid, too. This is basically either a full or partial waiver of tuition and room and board costs.

On top of financial aid there are government backed student loans for students whose family income is below a certain threshold, and the Pell Grant offers up to $5k iirc of money straight into a student's pocket, depending on family income.

Students can also hunt down and apply for private scholarships.

In general, state schools can be less expensive than private. However, students who get into one of the top 66 can end up paying far less for their four years than their peers who go to their state school. It's not always clear-cut. Wherever you go, what you pay depends on your family income. The ticket price isn't the price everyone pays by any stretch of the imagination.

There is a small number of colleges and universities (within the group of 66) that offers decent financial aid to international students.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_the_United_States_by_endowment

Endowments of US universities.

This is how they attract and pay top academics and offer huge discounts on cost of attendance, build and maintain student accommodation, new facilities, etc.

www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b150nstw0yhzq8/the-americanization-of-oxford-and-cambridge

Not a direct comparison of endowments, but you'll see the picture.

Why aren’t high schools teaching to that level as standard? It seems bizarre that just to get the equivalent of A levels, US students have to do a whole additional series of exams.

What's bizarre about it? You do the courses in school if you're able for the pace and standard of work. They're taught by the high school teachers. You register for the exams and take them in school. They're just one more exam, two in the case of economics, iirc.

My DCs took AP level courses from their second year of high school on.

Students are very often placed on different academic tracks from their first year onward based on the results of placement tests administered in their last year of middle school. Some students are going to test into calculus as freshmen, and some will be placed in remedial pre algebra. The majority will be placed somewhere in between. The same goes for subjects like English/ Language Arts - some kids will go on the honours track, and some will need to be taught basics like sentence construction.

In other words, high schools cater for a wide range of ability, and aspiration too. Schools provide courses as different as automotive tech / cosmetology and Latin / Individual Investigative Science Project. My local high school has 3,500+ students enrolled. They're not all university bound. They don't all need AP level classes.

High schools have to teach everyone the courses mandated by their individual state, and there are often individual school district requirements too. You can't graduate from the local high school without passing swimming and your driving exam, plus civics, financial literacy, art, a certain number of years of English, mathematics, science, mfl, applied arts, etc. It pushes some students to pass all the classes required to amass the 43 credits they need to graduate.

Generally, the most able students start on the honours track and end up taking pretty much all AP level courses in their final two years. Others stay on 'college prep' level, with others doing more vocational courses along with the required maths, English, etc. There is an opportunity to move up a level via summer school, where you can do a year's worth of maths (for example) in an intensive six week timeframe involving four hours of daily slog. Not everyone has the motivation or need to do this. Summer school also offers retakes of classes students may have failed.

Hi OP. Why do Americans call university 'school'? Doesn't this create confusion?

@CowboyHat they aren't additional exams, you spend all year taking the AP class then sit the exam at the end. For example, if you're in a regular or honors English class you'll sit an end of year exam set by your school but if you're in AP English then you'll sit the AP exam instead.
The US education system isn't perfect, but it is very good at differentiating in High school and there are generally 3 tracks that you can move between with regular, honors & AP. Not all schools can offer all classes but universities are aware of what is available at your school and will take this in to account with your application.

And it's pretty standard for high schools to offer AP level courses.

Crosspost with @mathanxiety, but exactly what they said!

Is North Western better than Brown? A friend’s daughter turned down Yale for North Eastern. Are they in a park even though Yale/Harvard are the most famous?

In a park??? ON A PAR!

b autocorrect

@Pineappleredwine Northeastern is not on a par with Yale, Harvard, Brown or Northwestern. It a very good school in an excellent location but the other 4 are extremely selective, world class institutions.

So you’re saying North Western is better than Brown?

there has been lots of talk of student loan forgiveness recently.

Do you think the Supreme Court will find a way to strike Biden's debt forgiveness plan down?

so many private schools are happy to take international students

Same in UK. Many Unis (these are UK govt Unis) have big programmes recruiting overseas. International students pay £27k year at DS's Uni. Sandhurst charges something like £100k for non-commonwealth officer training.

I hadn’t picked up on that - we are visiting there over the summer!! Not sure it’s particularly cheaper tho!

@Pineappleredwine you mentioned Northwestern and Northeastern, they're different universities in different cities. Northwestern is very much on a par with Brown, Northeastern is not. I would not accept a place in Northeastern over Brown, Northwestern, Yale or Harvard, very definitely a tier below in terms of rankings and prestige.