Let me start off by saying that I’m not super attached to the United States. I think of Alaska as its own nation, and I always have. I force myself to recognize this because I recognize that the decision of “where do I want to spend my younger years” is an extremely personal one to make.
I also must recognize my own background. Though I was born in Alaska, I’ve spent a considerable amount of my adolescence away from it, only really returning for periods of vacation. I’ve been living away from home since I was thirteen. In every way that matters, I’m already a foreign student.
So, when I title this piece “Why I’m Leaving” I really mean why I, myself, am leaving. I’m not trying to convince anyone to follow in my path, and I’m certainly not trying to discredit the system we have already established in the United States. What I am trying to say is this: under a set of very specific circumstances, the United States may no longer be the best choice for some people. Money, quality of education, career goals, personal goals, and hell, just the things we want from our jeunesse, all play into the decision that we make for university.
The first consideration is obvious: money. America has some of the most expensive education in the world. We all know someone who has had to turn down a top 20 offer because they didn’t get the financial aid package they needed. This sucks, seriously. In state tuition can often be a saving grace, but the ugly truth is that not every state has good institutions, or at least not institutions that fit our goals. State schools sometimes provide a lower quality of education, and even then, they can cost more than a university abroad.
Even the cheapest schools in America, take U-Wyoming for example, with an in state tuition of ~$8,400/year, we’re still looking at a program double the price of somewhere like La Sorbonne in Paris. Not only does La Sorbonne provide a better education, but it puts you a train ride from Brussels, Geneva, London, and the institutions that actually shape international policy. A school like U-Wyoming simply can’t offer that.
The second consideration is access. The few American students who do apply abroad tend to apply to your Cambridges, UCLs, Trinity Dublins, and maybe the odd HKU. This makes sense, given that these schools are predominantly taught in English. What people don’t seem to realize is that you can go to schools like Keio University in Tokyo, NUS in Singapore, even Peking University in Beijing. Peking was ranked #14 in the world this year, in front of Princeton at #15. Almost all of these schools have programs taught entirely in English.
And here’s what no one talks about: these schools want you. International universities, especially in Asia and continental Europe, are actively recruiting American students. They offer scholarships, dedicated support systems, and streamlined admissions to attract them. A competitive American applicant who might get waitlisted at a school like Villanova or Boston University could very well be a priority admit at a globally ranked institution abroad. The math on that should bother you.
Now, this is not to say that even if you get into Georgetown you should drop everything and go to Europe to study international policy. But it should make you ask a question. Sciences Po in Paris was ranked #3 in political science this year, behind only Oxford and Harvard. We’re talking about a world class institution that the average American has never even heard of. Georgetown is $90,000 a year vs Sciences Po at $24,000 a year (a ridiculous number for most Europeans), and frankly, for what?
This is the most important takeaway. Undergrad is the new high school. Employers are increasingly looking for candidates to start entry level positions with Masters degrees, and a Masters program isn’t going to care as much about the name of your undergrad as they care about your grades, activities, demonstrated interest, and applied motivations to achieve your goals. If the diploma is just a stepping stone, why mortgage your future to get one?
So here’s what I want you to think about. Europe leads the world in mechanical engineering. You could go to Skidmore and get a great education for $93,000 a year, or you could pay $2,400 and go to ETH Zurich, then do your Masters back stateside. Chinese schools are practically begging for international students to come, and at a certain point you might even have a better chance of getting into Tsinghua University than a target school in the United States. You can get a great education in the US, but what matters is what you use that education for. Personally, I don’t want to go $250,000 into debt when I could get a degree of the same quality for $12,000 over the course of three years while living in Paris.
That’s why I’m leaving, but also why I intend to come back. America still leads the world in graduate education, and that’s where professional life really begins. So I have to ask the question: if the goal is a Masters from an American institution, why not spend undergrad somewhere better, cheaper, and more interesting, at a school that actually wants you there? Why stay?
