The cost of your British degree does NOT depend on its ranking in the league tables. No, you do not get a discount for going to a university at the bottom of the league table, nor do you have to pay extra for going to a good university at the top of the league table. It varies depending on the type of course you go for. For international students, undergraduate fees for 2013-14 start at £7,450 (US$12,044) for lecture-based courses, going up to £36,600 (US$58,201) for an undergraduate medical degree at the top of the price range. Most international undergraduate fees are around £10,000 (US$16,167) – not much more than those for home students. At postgraduate level, the majority of international fees for 2013-14 are between £10,000 and £12,000 (US$16,167 and US$19,400). The extreme ends of the spectrum range from £7,900 (US$12,771) to £38,532 (US$62,294) – again, medicine is the priciest option.
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| What is the return on the investment you've made on your degree? |
Likewise, if you pick a university in central London, then your cost of living is going to be much higher than if you were studying in a much smaller city or town elsewhere in the country. It is estimated that London costs on average about 20% more than the rest of the country, but this really varies on the kind of lifestyle the student wants to have in London. I suppose it's okay if you're visiting here as a tourist for a holiday or if you're working here and getting local London wages, but as a student, it is pretty much one of the most expensive cities in the world to get a degree!
How seemingly illogical is this situation? Let me give you an analogy. Imagine if you went to an English restaurant and you asked the waiter, "how much is the lobster?" The waiter replies, "It is £20 sir." You then ask him, "how much is the T-bone steak?" He replies, "It is also £20 sir." You then ask the waiter, "how much is a green salad?" The waiter replies, "That too, is £20, sir." You then ask the waiter, "how much for a slice of bread?" Or a cup of water?" The waiter replies, "Both a slice of bread and a cup of water are £20 each, sir." You then realize that everything on the menu is the same price, it makes no sense whatsoever but such is the situation with British degrees. You do not get a discount for going to a crap university at the bottom of the league table, the same way a slice of bread is going to cost you as much as a lobster or steak in that English restaurant. Good universities do not charge a premium for their courses.
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| What if the steak and a slice of bread costs exactly the same in this restaurant? |
This begs the question: why bother spending this much money, going to a very expensive British university to get a degree that will get you a rather poor return on your investment? That would be the equivalent of paying £20 for a slice of bread when you could get a lobster for the same price at that restaurant. Imagine if you turned up at that restaurant late one night and the waiter told you, "We're out of steak and lobster but you can have some bread and water. We're still going to charge you £20 for the bread and £20 for the water though if you want to dine here." If that is all you can get at this British restaurant, wouldn't it make sense to look for better options elsewhere? Are there cheaper options that will give you a better return on your investment? The answer is yes, there are cheaper options in places like India, Malaysia and the Philippines where you can get a much cheaper degree. The language of instruction in these universities would still be English and okay, these are not particularly good universities with good international reputations, then then again, neither are universities at the very bottom of the British league tables.
Let's just look at a university in the Philippines in comparison: it is incredibly cheap to study there. Let's compare the Philippines to the UK. In the UK, according to the UK National Union of Students, the cost of living for a year for an international student is approximately between £12,000 and £13,300, if you were to add the universities fees to that (say £12,000), that could easily mean spending £25,000 a year (US$42,500). Let's round that down to US$40,000 for a year and if the degree takes three years, that makes it a round figure of US$120,000 or S$150,000. Ouch.
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| Degrees are expensive - so choose wisely. |
In the Philippines, the universities fees will vary from institution to institution. The average course fees for study start from US$3,000. Apart from that the cost of living for international students is between US$1200 to US$1500 per year.So even if we were to bump that up to US$5000 a year, that's still US$15,000 or S$18,700 for a three year course compared to US$120,000 or S$150,000 in the UK. Of course, there will be variations and this is a rough estimate - but the bottom line is that a Filipino degree a lot more affordable than a British degree.
If you have earned yourself a place in Oxford or Cambridge, then by all means, beg, borrow and steal to find that S$150,000 to finance your studies there. But if the best you can do is Bolton, or some other university at the bottom of the league table, then why spend that much money for a degree that will give you a very poor ROI? If you really want a degree but can't get yourself a place at a good university, then why not pick a cheaper one from the Philippines that will cost just 12.5% of what you would pay in the UK? After all, a good university in the Philippines is bound to be better than the very worst universities in the UK. I hate to make this sound like an advertisement for Filipino universities, but it is a really good alternative to the UK or US if money if you're looking for a good ROI on your degree.
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| If you can get a good ROI on a Filipino degree, then why not? |
Why are there hardly any Singaporeans going to Filipino, Malaysian or Indian universities then? Is it the snob factor that is holding them back? Are you afraid of going to the same university as your maid? Would Singaporeans turn their noses up at a Filipino university? By that token, if you're going to be a total snob about it, why aren't you also turning your noses up at universities at the bottom of the UK league tables then? Why are Singaporeans so oblivious to the fact that there are some pretty awful universities at the bottom of the league tables in the UK?
So that's my question for you readers: whilst not everyone can earn themselves in a university that is in the top 10 of the league tables in somewhere like the UK or US, why do they still get their parents to spend around S$150,000 for a degree from a university at the very bottom of the league tables, when they can easily get a much cheaper from somewhere like the Philippines and snob-factor aside, the Filipino universities can offer great value for money and a good ROI on your investment. What do you think? Would you get a degree from a Filipino or perhaps an Indian university? Would you hire someone with a degree from a Filipino university? Why are Singaporeans choosing expensive British universities at the wrong end of the league table over much better and cheaper Filipino universities? Is this no more than old fashioned racism? What are your thoughts? Leave a comment below, thanks for reading.
One thing is ranking. By global rankings, the majority of the top 400 universities by times higher education are mostly western or developed Asian countries. SE Asian nations' universities don't even come close. Singapore's parents are very anal about ranking to the point they are willing to volunteer in top primary schools so that their child has a chance to get in.
ReplyDeleteI also think Singaporeans will not be able to adapt to the living conditions there. Singaporeans are too spoiled and prefer to study in a comfortable, air conditioned, clean environment. Have you seen how poorly maintained the structure are in Philippines and India? Filth, poorly maintained roads and high crime rate are the norm. My god, the slums in Philippines are such an eyesore and my younger brother who went to India for overseas NS training talked about how torn and tattered the buildings are.
If a Singaporeans want overseas degree so much, just get a foreign degree from SIM, MDIS, Kaplan.
Hi there. If you wanna talk about top 400 universities, then a top 20 or top 30 university in the UK might just scrape into the global top 400. Anything beyond that, forget it - the bottom line is that amongst the universities in the UK, only the top 30 should be considered seriously by Singaporean students and the rest are so not worth the money. So between a Filipino university and a crappy UK university at the bottom of the league table, I would use the saying 半斤八两 - they are just as bad as each other, it is only old fashioned racism that makes Singaporeans still choose the expensive British university like Bolton over the cheaper Filipino option.
DeleteYeah I've traveled around in poorer Asian countries, but so what? We're talking about getting a cheap degree here, we're not talking about which 5 star resort you wanna choose for a fancy holiday.
I seriously doubt it's down to just racism. I don't deny that there's an element of racism. But there is more to having gone to a "developed world" university than the courses; there is the aspect of having actually lived away from home in the "developed world".
DeleteAnd honestly, I am amazed that your mindset is quite as reductive as to say "if you just want a degree, price is all that matters."
LIFT, this post of yours is really going to ruffle some feathers! You see, folks like from my parents generation have very little idea about foreign U rankings and risk aversion. To them, it is "wah from UK Uni, must be good". It is a different thing in Singapore as they will of course be far more familiar with the different hierachy of local schools and universities. Certainly in their perception, a degree from Philippines or India will be like "huh, is it even a degree?". That surface response is something which simple minded folks will catch on to.
ReplyDeleteIt all depends if people bother to go more in depth to check on the quality of the educational institute. In my opinion, the whole issue is cultural, where parents have this idea of expecting the kids to become the dragon and phoenix of the future via the path of higher education. Probably stem from feudal Chinese concept that only successful scholars get into official positions. Or perhaps post colonial assumptions that only the highly educated get to rub shoulders with important folks and get important jobs that pay well.
The reality is quite different now. Academia works for some, disaster for others. The catch is whether you can recognise if that academic path is suited for yourself. If not, sometimes we just have to pay a big price for finding out. Afterall, nobody promises that life will be a rose garden. Just got to accept that sometimes we will get pricked by the thorns when we try to smell the roses.
Hahahaha Shane, that's exactly what I do, ruffle feathers! The fact is folks like your parents are different from our generation - my generation is so obsessed with ranking and results. The fact is, depending on your choice of degree, most faculties in NUS/NTU are probably on par with a top 10 or at least top 20 university in the UK, so that means that amongst the 123 universities in the UK, roughly 20 are at least as good or better than NUS/NTU and the other 100 are in fact inferior. So this colonial mindset is just plain stupid really, I have no other word for it, because it so does not reflect the situation! The fact is, there are plenty of really shit universities in the UK, US, Canada, Australia etc - and whilst there are those like Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Harvard, MIT, UCL etc - they represent the minority of universities in the West.
ReplyDeleteBut my point in this post is that a degree from a crap university at the very bottom of the UK league table is going to cost you roughly the same as one from Oxford or Cambridge. It's like walking into that English restaurant where everything is priced at £20, even a slice or bread or a cup of water is just £20, as is the lobster and the steak. If you can get a lobster or a steak at £20 - that's a bargain. But if all you can get is a cup of tap water for your £20, then you're well and truly being ripped off.
Well Shane, let me share with you a little perspective as an older person who can perhaps appreciate why the older generation have this mindset. Back in the 1950s, NUS was still recovering from WW2 where everything was totally disrupted and they were in a long, slow process of reestablishing themselves after the terrible war and Japanese occupation period. In the late 1960s, after independence, a lot of the staff who were British expats left and again, that left gaps in the departments which took time to fill with locals (and other expats). Singapore was a poor country then and money was short in supply. In the 1970s, NUS began to settle down and build their reputation, but remember they were starting with little after all that had gone on in the last few decades. It was only in the 1980s that people began to take NUS quite seriously on the international scene and by the 1990s, it had finally gained international recognition for the kind of quality research it produced. Thanks to generous funding by the government and bolstered by a strong primary & secondary education locally, by the 2000s, it had become one of the best in the world.
DeleteLike so much of Singapore's history, NUS' phenomenal success was achieved in a short space of time, compared to much older universities in Europe. Think about it, back in 1965, Singapore was a poor third world country and a far cry from the mega-rich city it is today.
Hence in that context, yes back in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, NUS would have been inferior to many universities in the West. But not today! Today it is vastly superior to the vast majority of the universities in the UK and would easily rank in the top 20 if you were to place it in the UK league tables. It is just such a shame - no, it is just so freaking frustrating when I read about older Singaporeans who still have this colonial mindset of "angmoh university must be better than Singaporean university". Hell no. This is 2014. You have got to realize that you can't treat "angmoh university" as if it is a monolithic entity. There is a huge difference between Bolton and Oxford. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realize just how huge that difference is.
Its all got to do with awareness. My two old folks are primarily chinese educated, they know little about UK / US Uni except those that gets branded about all the time, i.e. Oxbridge, London, Yale, Harvard etc. I doubt they have even heard of those at the bottom, I suspect they still have this impression there are only a few unis in UK / US and they are all prestigious.
DeleteOn the other hand, Father could rattle off about which of the major Chinese Unis are great e.g. Peking Uni, Fudan Uni, Nat Taiwan Uni and happily dismiss off the other less known. Its all a matter of what they are familiar and aware of as their choice of media and language is primarily driven by what they are comfortable with.
That colonial mindset belief is still in existence, can't deny that. But I think the awareness of the difference in quality is inherently dependent on their perception. For example, my aunt who is probably a prototype of Amy Chua's Asian Tiger Mother living in Perth has openly declared to my cousins that if she is going to fund their Uni ed, it jolly has to be one of the top state uni. If they want some place like Murdoch and all, then they either ship out or self fund. My mum unfortunately could not figure out why cos in her perception, theres only state uni that are good and she just couldn't get the concept that there are lower rank community colleges.
So there you have it, its the sort of knowledge gap and assumptions. Suffice to say my parents are from that generation of blissful ignorance where their perception about unis is that they must all be good if they are from developed countries.
FYI - I suspect we are probably about the same age range and our parents probably are from that same baby boomer / postwar generation :)
Yup, I totally recognize what you're saying. Come on, in big countries like UK, US, Australia, there are bound to be a whole range of universities from the likes of Oxford, Cambridge, Yale and Harvard to dodgy bomiah no-name community colleagues in some far-flung ulu-ulu corner of the country. Oh please. It saddens and disappoints me when I see Singaporeans with this kind of colonial mindset - I live in England, I am surrounded by angmors all the time and after having spent half my life in Angmohland, I'm like what's the big fat hairy deal?
DeleteSigh.
Hi LIFT, can you advise on the top tier universities? Those that you mentioned as MIT, Stanford, Harvard and the like. I was told that admission into these universities need not be difficult, so long as you pay your own way. I am talking about PhD level. This willingness to take students, I was told, stems from the governmental cutback of funding into these institutions. From your perspective, is this observation valid. If so, the extent of its validity. Really looking forward to your views.
DeleteHello Matthew. I am afraid I cannot give you blanket advice on all of these top tier universities as it would pretty much vary on a case by case basis. What I can say is that top tier universities need to protect their name and quality, so they would never have to resort to taking in students with money (and not brains) - the moment word gets out that they are compromising on the quality of their intake, they could lose a LOT more money through missing out of research grants, sponsorship, donations and other vital sources of income.
DeleteThe bottom line is that fees only make up roughly half of a university's income - the other half comes from other sources so if you severely compromise on the quality of the intake just to make some short term financial gain, the long term financial loss will be a lot more painful.
In short, the numbers won't add up, the universities just won't do that.
Why Bolton, London Metropolitan, Indian, Malaysian or Filipino universities?
ReplyDeleteMurdoch and Curtin are much more affordable and better ( maybe for Limpeh, also not really). And yes, study in Singapore (hence affordable) and graduate with Murdoch or Curtin degrees could get them jobs, as accountants or in marketing and sales. And I should know, because I have friends, colleagues and even a former boss who were from there.
In fact, one of our opposition MPs is a Curtin graduate in marketing. She even defeated a NUS MBBS degree and PAP candidate in an election! Amazing, isn' it?
Well David, let's look at Murdoch and Curtin in a bit more detail, okay?
DeleteMurdoch's ranking in Australia is 26 out of 31 - that puts it in the bottom 20% of universities even within Australia. Even by Australian standards, it is a pretty bad option. Aussie students with good results will always opt to go to much better universities within Australia.
Curtin is slightly better, it is ranked 13th out of 31 Aussie universities, so that puts it at least within the top 50% of universities in Australia, but only just.
Source: http://www.australianuniversities.com.au/rankings/
So I would be cautious about lumping Curtin and Murdoch into the same category, at least Curtin is respectable and decent by Australian standards whilst Murdoch is a last resort if you have been rejected by all the other better Australian universities. I make no bones about it: Curtin is much, much better than Murdoch.
Have there been Murdoch graduates who have gone on to carve out a decent career for themselves? Of course, I have never said that you would be ruined for life just because you have the word 'Murdoch' or Bolton or LMU on your CV. Heck, there are non-graduates with no degrees who have gone on to do very well in life.
So you can say, "Oh so and so went to this laoya buehtakchek university and see? Today he is so rich and doing so well." Yeah, that's not the point. What we're talking about is the ROI (return on investment) you will get on your degree.
If you have a degree from Oxford or Cambridge, people are going to be impressed and it will open doors for you, give you opportunities. If you have a degree from some chapalang no name buehtakchek university, then it will not help open any doors for you at all. People are going to look at your CV and think, "aiyoh what went wrong, why did you end up in this buehtakchek no name university?"
It offers a very poor return on your investment as it is still bloody expensive, even if it is a no name university. Yes you can still go on to get a job despite having a crap degree from such a no name university, but you have given your parents a very poor return on their investment.
If the ROI on going to a "no-name university" as you call it is that poor, then OMG isn't the appropriate option to recommend that people not go to university, rather than go to a no name university? It genuinely amazes me how deeply you're bought into the same culture that you claim to despise that you offer the choice of a cheaper low ROI university over a more expensive low ROI university than simply saying; don't go.
DeleteAnd for the record, if you do in fact go to a top ranked university, you realise once you're in that only wankers are obsessed with rankings. Because at the top end of the scale, to ensure separation, ranking companies use criteria which are... dubious. Unless you really want to tell me that Imperial College London is a better university than Yale just because some company says so.
I generally try to stay out of contentious topics like this, but seriously, #SMFH.
Aiyah 回春, I'm dealing with Singaporeans here. Yes if it's all about ROI, then why bother going to a no name university at all, skip it altogether and get 3 years worth of work experience on your peers. Q.E.D. But with this generation Singaporeans, they feel that they cannot get by without a degree and there's this, "if everyone else has a degree, then I die die also must have one, bo pien" - there's an element of kiasuism which compels Singaporeans to believe that it is better to have a degree than to take a risk and just say no to university altogether.
DeleteSo I totally see your point. Sure. But you forget, we're dealing with Kiasu Singaporeans here.
Then surely the right answer is not to pander to kiasuism but to state bluntly that it is not worth the time to go to such universities. Because all you're doing with putting up such comparisons is trolling. At least if you say such universities are not worth the time, you don't need to bounce the rest off, and you're giving better advice.
DeleteFor example, Davin who posts here went to a university ranked outside the top 100 liberal arts colleges in the US. Did he waste his time going there?
Last of all, I am deeply, deeply sceptical of a ranking system that places NUS 20 places ahead of NYU, 33 places ahead of Carnegie Mellon, and 44 (!!!!) places ahead of LSE.
I don't really see it as pandering to kiasuism - I don't condom kiasuism per se, but I recognize that trying to start one man campaign to eradicate kiasuism from the mindset of Singaporeans is somewhat... foolhardy. As a writer, I understand my audience and I am trying to work within the confines of what they hold dear to their hearts. So whilst I accept and recognize your POV, I am hoping that you will also understand the context here. I've got to walk a fine line - if I am too radical, I will risk alienating my readers. I am offering them food for though and allowing them to make up their own minds on the issue.
DeleteOkay, fair enough. I hear the point that you need to not drive away your readers. But I dunno, if you really believe in something, I'd think the right thing to do is to state it, and then offer other options - rather than jumping to the other options first. But it's your readership I guess.
DeleteI don't understand this whole talk about university ranking and ROI, I'm more fascinated by the fact that people are willing to spend $20,000 annually on a degree in the UK for example and not basically do their research?! I think that original commenter Raymond Tan (whose grammar is beautiful) is coming from a very different place where polytechnic students have close to zero chance of entering NTU/SMU/NUS and therefore choose UniSIM even if they do end up anywhere in the top 20% of the graduating cohort. And then who have the nice wonderful people who don't bet an eyelid on paying $6,000 for a diploma, fuck that up and then find themselves in the same UniSIM.
ReplyDeleteNot bashing private education seeing that I come from one. But come on! Has anybody seen the array of courses that UniSIM offers? Tell me that you don't sit there and wonder about QC.
Please to all you people, I know y'all have spade loads of money to spare just for the sake of saying you're a graduate but at least look like you care about something and do your research to find out the difference between a Tier 1 national university that gets full research funding and a second tier university that will have more problems getting that from the UK government? The amount of money, how fast and how ready they are in sponsoring your data have a proportionate impact in how nice you find your library/gyms/dorms/labs and shiny shit that you all seem to care so much about....
Twenty-tree
Hi Muchopunk, if you're talking in terms of Sng dollars, 20k barely even covers the fees, never mind living costs, flights, etc.
DeleteThanks for your comment.
Yup $20,000 is the estimate for the annual school fees only. Assuming your room rental of 100 pounds a week not inclusive of electricity and food is paid for by the parents upfront, the last time I calculated, if you live outside of london and know how to save, $4,000 or 2000 pounds as a first year student to cover living expanses for a year should be just enough....but you must really know how to manage for finances for 200 pounds a month for 10 months.
ReplyDeleteNow that I've done some digging around myself, seeing that there are so many computer science/computer/IT people from India, if your grades do make it, going to some of those top colleges at a considerable lower price then say in the UK is actually not that bad a deal.
Too bad, like some of your commenters above said, Singaporeans and their parents will never go down that route.
Twenty-Tree
UK VI won't let you in without proof of sufficient funds and that budget is £1k+ a month for Central London. After school fees.
DeleteYes like you said, that amount is there to ensure that students don't move on to the workforce using a student visa. Beyond that, how you spend your money is up to you and like I said 200 pounds for 1 first year student with the amount of free entertainment geared towards them means the monthly expenditure outside of london is not as high as what people presume to be.
DeleteTwenty-tree
Poly grads are probably better off doing a distance BA degree programme run by the University of London - at least you can opt to have a degree conferred by LSE and other reputable unis in the UOL grouping. It is cheaper and much better than spending all that cash on attending a third rate uni in the UK. Just need loads of self-motivation........
ReplyDelete