<p>This is a headline from a [recent</a> article](<a href=“The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines”>The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines) in The Times about the college application process in the UK. The article states that they expected more than 200,000 people seeking a place in a university won’t be able to find one - at a time when the job market in the UK is horrible. Apparently, 570,556 people have applied for positions, and applications dont close until June. But there will be just 443,000 places offered. The remainder of the 200,000 won’t achieve sufficient grades to even be considered.</p>
<p>I must admit that I am mostly unfamiliar with the UK system, and found this shocking. While we all bemoan the competitive nature of the US-based college application process, virtually everyone who is looking for a college can find one, from the Ivy’s to community college. I can’t imagine what it would be like to apply under a system where a substantial proportion of people don’t even get in.</p>
<p>Even more shocking, this phenomenon seems to be brand new in the UK. If you look at [this</a> graphic](<a href=“The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines”>The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines) you can see that applications have been steadily increasing, but places available had been ahead up until and including 2009. Then, the number of applications skyrocketed this year (presumably because of the bad job market) while the number of places fell (presumably because of austerity funding of the universities by the government). Unlike the US, all universities (except the University of Buckingham) have government-subsidized tuition.</p>
<p>Interesting. From the thread title I thought it was going to be about the UCs. They had 50,000 applicants this year. A friend’s D with a 4.4 gpa was rejected by all three UCs she applied to.</p>
<p>UK has always been known to be a bit more elitist regarding their education than that of the US. For years it was widely known that they didn’t have the same number of educational opportunities for their population as we did here in the US. This is primarily due to the fact that their system is subsidized by the government. However, UK kids can come here if they want, although at a much steeper price.</p>
<p>Not surprising that the economy drives people to quality schools with state prices. However, I would think that concerns over the financial crisis in California and current and likely, future cutbacks on education would push people who can afford it away from these schools.</p>
Although I believe our universities would take them, they wouldn’t be able to afford them. Remember that a university education in the UK is heavily subsidized. Few would be able to afford the travel, room and board, plus tuition of a U.S. university.</p>
<p>Um, not really. The structure of education in the UK was formed much more by the class system. The vast majority of working class students left school by 16 at the very latest, and access to university was restricted to those who could afford private education or the elite few who were able to gain entrance to the small number of publicly-supported grammar schools. The future of students was determined pretty much in advance. (Bear in mind that it was standard for middle class families to send their kids to private schools, especially at the secondary level.)</p>
<p>Unfortunately, IIRC, as recently as 30 years ago the percentage of British students attending university may have been as low as 5%. (My memory fails.) If anything, the advent of widespread government-supported education in the 20th century opened up higher education to many more people, rather than restricting it to the upper classes and the grammar school (mostly) boys. You need to look back at the historical roots of the situation to understand how it has evolved…</p>
<p>It is probably the case that the same system is now strangling access once again, as public budgets for education are slashed and private alternatives do not exist. Certainly one could make a case that the absence of a wider selection of private universities and colleges helps restrict access now. It is also true, however, that the “meaning” of a “college” degree in the US has been severely debased in the process of making it available to almost everyone. In the UK, there have been “colleges” that were more vocationally-oriented for a long time, and there was a clear distinction between them and “universities.” A university degree was not a prerequisite for most careers, as it has been in the US. To compare US and UK degrees at the non-elite level is to some extent to compare apples and oranges.</p>
<p>Kids I know who are going to Britain for college are paying at least, maybe more than what the state Uni costs is what I have been told. Is that out of country surcharge?</p>
<p>ebeee: curious if the 4.4 kid received later acceptances to UCR and UCM. Last year D was rejected @ the only UC to which she applied but received acceptance to those two UCs sometime in May.</p>
<p>re the OP this sounds horrible. What a shock to find there was no room for you at this point in the game. What about trade schools…will they accept kids who have received the University prep curriculum or are they set up to accommodate just the teens who choose them earlier in their educational career?</p>
<p>In the UK, tuition costs £4000 maximum a year unless you’re doing medicine, when it’s a bit higher. I am using all of the money my parents saved for me for a house/car/holiday after leaving a British uni to go to the USA instead. I will still graduate in debt.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse, British and European universities are highly subsidized for EU citizens and residents who pay taxes there. It is logically quite a bit more expensive for Americans (non-EU residents) to attend, just like with the U.S. state school system.</p>
<p>The alternative for applicants who didn’t get into any university, particularly those who really need a degree, would be to enroll in The Open University, Britain’s distance learning university.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse, recently elite British universities have been taking American and other international students and charging them more or less what an Ivy League university would charge in the US. They’ve been doing this for the same reason many of our state universities take OOS students–because kids paying full freight give them badly needed revenue.</p>
<p>The amount charged to students in the UK has also risen precipitously–not nearly as much as it has in the US, but on the other hand families were not prepared at all and parents hadn’t been saving for college tuition since their children’s birth, as many of us do.</p>
<p>What is the tuition cost at British universities for British citizens? Curious about that, because I had read that there was some large increase in tuition costs some years ago that caused a big uproar. I know for us in NY, the SUNY costs are $4-5K per year for tuition. I would think the British schools run at least that much. </p>
<p>Most Europeans and Asians I know who went to college, commuted or lived with relatives while going to college. Not a whole lot of dorm type housing available. Certainly not the campus life many of us seek for our kids at college. I know that the major cost for my son at SUNY was the room, board and other expenses that would be high in Europe too.</p>
<p>Jingle, you posted while I was posting. That is what I understood. So there are 50,000 students in Britain whose families have that kind of money and there is no place for them? What about private colleges there? If the public ones cost that much, the costs for schools like Richmond College in London and the market for privates should be there.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse - I posted this on the previous page, but tuition fees for me in the UK would be just under £4000 (I’m English). Private universities do not exist in the same way here as in the USA. Richmond College, which you mention, is a US-run university and thus does not “count” as an English institution. The only private institutions for higher education here are vocational schools, for instance for Acting, Music or Design.</p>
<p>Also, university housing either on campus at campus-based schools or in the city at city-based schools certainly is available, and widely used by the majority of students, at least in the first year. I am not sure where you have got the idea that people live with their families - few do, and those who do are mainly those living in strict (usually Asian, sorry) families, whose parents do not want them living out.</p>
<p>Wow. The colleges on the “in expensive” list (because they would be easiest for UK students to afford) and on the “still have openings” list (because they need more students) should recruit more heavily in the UK. Hmm. </p>
<p>4000 GBP is $6000, the approximate annual international tuition at Bemidji State which is the least-expensive-to-internationals U.S. four-year college with dorms that I know of. So - if they are willing to attend a small, regional U.S. university - it is possible for these UK kids to come over here for about the same tuition they would have paid at home. </p>
<p>I would guess UK h.s. grads could - at many public U.S. colleges - get a semester or a year of U.S. college credit by testing out of classes. If you could save a year of tuition with your A level class record this would give you extra money to make up for the international airfare back and forth twice a year… I would be doable. I like the way SUNY Stony Brook is explicit about treating passed A levels like AP or IB tests. More U.S. colleges should “advertise” this.
[Stony</a> Brook University Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://www.stonybrook.edu/ugadmissions/applying/intl_credit.shtml]Stony”>http://www.stonybrook.edu/ugadmissions/applying/intl_credit.shtml)</p>