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.

We actually have quite high taxes but spend on a NHS and other services people value. HE is paid for partially by those who directly benefit by higher salaries. Others contribute via taxation. Others contribute very little as they don’t pay tax but reap the benefits of grads. It’s complex but we are not going to replicate the USA system nor offer free courses to the rich again. On balance we don’t do too badly but could make improvements.

Pah, Americans pay a lot in taxes - federal, state, county/local, sales tax on everything they buy, and property taxes, and pay for municipal services on top of that.

That is a good point. Cancelling 20K in student date does nothing to address the issue of college costs.

Universities have already gotten their money, lenders don't care who pays them as long as they get their money; it's just shifting the debt from the borrower to the American taxpayer.

I don't see the Court ruling in Biden's favor on this one, but who knows?

on a different question - it seems normal for students to be able to transfer from one college to another and take their credits with them. Does that mean the courses all cover the same content? So if you do biology 101 at one university it will give you the knowledge to do biology 201 at another?

@mathanxiety
Wno said Americans didn’t pay tax? I was responding to others thinking we could ditch fees here. What we don’t do here is encourage philanthropy.

not going to fix the problem.

What do you see as the problem? With every public service there is always going to be a mismatch between aspirations and funding available. I actually don't see the UK as being too bad, when compared with many other countries. We have several very well regarded Universities, access for the less well off is pretty good and parents are not having to extend themselves to the degree they might in the US. Amongst DS' close friends were some who came through state schools and who were very much the first in their families to go to University and yet ended up on funded PhD programmes at good Universities in the US.

There are questions about the usefulness of some degrees, and perhaps about the British thing of living away from home, which adds to the cost, and plenty more. However I would argue that Higher education in the UK is good and that our young people are lucky to have the choices they have.

It depends on what you want. One American on DS' LSE Masters programme (with previous degrees from CalTech and Harvard Business School) was aghast at the lack of facilities and of enrichment activates. She complained and was essentially told you get what you pay for and was reminded that she was paying for 10 months intense and high quality technical education, but not a lot more. (Which she accepted!)

The issue about living away from home is partially avoided by people with a choice of brilliant universities in a huge city. Should Oxford young people accept Oxford Brooks if they don’t get into Oxford? Or what about living in the country with the “local” university (?) in the bottom 10% in the country? Sadly, staying at home doesn’t help social mobility and should not be encouraged. For decades students have left home to go to the best universities. It’s not that Brits won’t stay at home, it’s mostly because we want DC to aim high and that’s not provided for unless you live near a great university or in a city with choice. Even then it might be average for your course or not offer it at all.

TizerorFizz I did not mean that. There are always exceptions. However there is a culture in the UK of students going away to University, even if good Universities are available locally, that does not exist in much of Europe. This adds to the costs of providing higher education. I was not adding a value judgement.

I am not saying it is good or bad. I was really trying to drill down on MathsAnxiety's concern that UK Higher Education has a problem that needs fixing.

It's not always possible to transfer credits, particularly if you're transferring to a better regarded university than the one you're leaving, or the one you're transferring into has a Core curriculum like U Chicago where The College wants all students to have the same experience of their first two years.

Courses don't all have the same content, and are taught by professors of varying calibre. Universities can examine each other's syllabi and determine comparability.

And it's usually easier to transfer credits within a state university system. My daughter started in one and then graduated from another, with all credits transferring, but both are part of our state's network of publicly funded colleges and universities.

There really isn't such a mismatch between aspirations and money available when it comes to universities in the US.

The less well off do pretty well in the American university picture. You're not going to get into a good university if your grades are low, which is understandable and not controversial. But if you are able to do well in high school, you have a good chance of going to a well-regarded university and paying very little for your degree.

And there are routes to university through community colleges, and ROTC, where the armed forces foot your bill at a state university, under the terms of the GI Bill, and you are commissioned as an officer upon graduation - you then serve an appointed number of years and can retire and move into the private sector or pu lic service (your armed forces service is very attractive in the public sector) with your degree and your active duty officer experience under your belt. You join the reserves and do periodic training, and you are entitled to VA benefits and an officer's pension on top of whatever other pension or retirement provision you get from your career outside the forces. DS' roommate in his final year was doing a degree in French, paid for by the US government. He was a second generation American of Central American heritage.

The endowment problem that British universities suffer (honorable exceptions noted) is going to be a huge issue now that EU research money isn't available anymore. Research opportunities attract top academic talent. If the money for research isn't available from outside sources (government, EU, industry) and there isn't enough funding available from an institution itself to support research (endowment problem) there will be an increasing stratification of British universities, with a select few at the top and the rest a lot further down, caught in a vicious cycle caused by funding issues.

There's a reason why all those British kids who pull themselves up by their bootstraps end up doing PhDs in the US. It's money.

There's a reason why all those British kids who pull themselves up by their bootstraps end up doing PhDs in the US. It's money.

Quite an American statement.

And not always true. DS had a good offer to study for a funded PhD in the UK. He would have been better off as he would have been paid extra for any teaching work, whereas in the US it is part of the contract.

However he was strongly advised to get some US experience. I am sure that @poetryandwine could comment, but the advice he received was that experience outside the UK was valuable in itself. (Department rankings were about the same.)

Our observation was that DCs classmates, and 30+ went to the US each year, almost entirely to high ranking schools, tended to go to study liberal arts. The STEM kids, even if their parents were Americans, often stayed in the UK for their first degree, moving to the US for PG. The fit between A levels and Imperial/Cambridge is good, and students will emerge after 3 years with a strong technical skill set, a good platform for post graduate study elsewhere.

In contrast the broader education offered by a liberal arts degree was seen to offer comparative advantage over UK single subject humanities degrees.

Hello, @Needmoresleep Currently my chief concern is that the length of PhD funding in the UK, four years max, is too short compared to both America and the Continent.

At the tertiary degree students (an MSubject for British going directly to the PhD) in all three systems are roughly equal. The latter two have much longer funded doctoral studentships, often 50% longer. This gives them time to acquire a broader knowledge base; in America they often pick up a Master’s degree along the way. Crucially, it gives them time to publish.

We have certain postdoctoral positions now reserved for British, but it is a narrow pipeline

Posted too soon

only accommodating a small fraction of our able new PhDs. These positions are almost a requirement for further academic or research employment in my field, because they bring the British up to par with international candidates. It is a big problem

Ahh. DS' US funding is six years, but that includes two years taught Masters, three years PhD and then a "job market" year.

The UK would have been four, I think, but he already had a Masters, so did not have to repeat it. (He knows of UK students, or rather one exceptional student, who was offered a PhD in the US straight from UG, but it is rare as the competition for places is so fierce.)

So about the same. The real problem was the funding of the Masters in the UK. We paid, but most of his friends had to find finance.

(There are an average of one UK student each year out of the 30 in his US PhD programme, and a second who had been to British orientated international schools and to the UK for Undergraduate. What is completely missing are US students. Some started but virtually none have lasted the course. Very strange, but a different subject altogether.)

@Needmoresleep In STEM American doctoral students tend to pick up their MSc incidentally, whilst taking courses at a level unavailable in the UK.

I first thought that taught MSc courses here would be at a level consistent with 1st or 2nd year doctoral courses in America. I have seen course notes from COWI institutions where this is true. Otherwise the RG MSc courses I have seen are lower level than Group I Y 1-2 (general ed) doctoral courses.

Although some funded Doctoral Training Programmes have a taught element that is supposed to be higher level, we are thus far finessing this

Reading with great interest as DD is about to start applying for PhDs here in the US...

Money isn't grubby.

Money is as relevant to the UK as it is to the US. Money makes a huge difference when it cones to the future of a university. Hence Oxbridge starting to take it very seriously.

Liberal arts colleges are not just for studying languages, literature, and humanities. They all offer STEM too.

Here's what Carleton College, MN, offers:
www.carleton.edu/admissions/explore/majors/

I'm not talking about the cost to the individual PhD candidate. I'm talking about the research opportunities, funded by government and industry, that exist in the US. An ambitious STEM student will want to make his mark in an area on the cutting edge.

American students embarking on PhDs very often get recruited into industry or by the government and can make far more money than they would in academia. There are very few jobs outside of academia that require a PhD.

I appreciate this is an older thread but does anyone have knowledge of the sports scholarships being a UK citizen? Our DD competes nationally and has reached a level where she is competing at GB team selection events but not picked. So good but not in the top3 more top 8 level & regional champions. Is it worth investigating further or is she better staying in UK? We are not high rate uk tax payers.

@SwimingSummer It depends on whether it's a sport that US unis want! Your best people to ask would be the regional or national governing body, who might well have links with agencies who specialise in this. I wouldn't normally recommend agencies, but it's different with sport scholarships; like it or not, and unfair or not, it does seems to depend on whether people can get footage/records in front of individual coaches at the unis involved. (Speaking from experience of helping kids with the process as part of my teaching job.)

It depends on the sport, and how her skills/times/whatever match up to the total applicant base. It may be worth investigating further.

Thanks it’s a niche sport within a big sport but has cross over skills to others. It’s mentioned in NCSA list. She’s excelled in two sports but taken one sport to nationally/ international comps. Just seen there’s a London event in September which we could get to find out more hopefully.

Good luck! My school sends on average two or three students per year to the US, about half of them on sports or music scholarships. The sports successes have all used agents. If your DD is national level she should be able to get a scholarship somewhere and an agency would advise. The question is whether that somewhere would be better for her than staying in the UK, as it might be a fairly small/obscure uni.