Foreign Student Series: Public or Private?
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Today, in week four of our Foreign Student Series, we discuss differences between public and private in American higher education.
A big difference involves money. Public colleges and universities charge for an education just like private schools. But state schools cost less because they get money from the states that started them to educate local citizens. As a result, out-of-state and international students usually pay more than state residents, at least the first year.
The state with the most residents, almost forty million, is California. Its systems of two-year and four-year colleges and universities are among the largest in the world.
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| A science building at the University of Oregon |
But the example we are going to focus on today is to the north of California, in a much smaller state on the West Coast: Oregon.
The University of Oregon, located in Eugene, is one of the campuses in the Oregon University System. The cost for undergraduates this year is six thousand dollars for state residents. Housing is an additional eight thousand. Nonresidents pay the same for housing — but almost twenty thousand dollars for tuition and fees.
Let’s see how these numbers compare to a private college in Oregon.
Lewis and Clark College in Portland has four thousand students, compared to twenty thousand at the University of Oregon. Housing costs eight hundred dollars more than at the state school. But the big difference is tuition. The published price at Lewis and Clark is almost thirty-four thousand dollars.
Yet Lewis and Clark is one of the few American colleges to offer financial aid for international students. Each year it awards financial aid to twenty students from other countries. And it says the average award last year was nineteen thousand dollars. That would make Lewis and Clark cheaper for international students than the University of Oregon.
But, of course, prices alone do not say anything about the quality of a school or the value of an education.
And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Our Foreign Student Series is online at voaspecialenglish.com. If you have a general question about American colleges and universities, we might answer your question in our series. Tell us your name and where you are. Use the Contact Us link at voaspecialenglish.com or write to special@voanews.com.
Foreign Student Series: Colleges and Degrees
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
We answer questions from two students this week in part five of our Foreign Student Series on American higher education.
Sylla Hamed in Ghana wants to know the difference between a university and a community college. And Marcelo Porto Nicola in Brazil asks about the difference between an undergraduate degree and a graduate degree.
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Undergraduates are students in the first four years of higher education, or what Americans call college. In the United States, that means the four years after twelfth grade.
But the work does not all have to be done at the same college.
For example, a student may first attend a two-year school, also called a community college or junior college. Students who complete a two-year course of study earn an associate degree.
Starting at a community college can save a lot of money if students want to go on to a four-year college or a big university. Many four-year schools will accept this work as the first two years toward a bachelor’s degree.
To earn a bachelor’s degree, students usually take general subjects during their first two years. After that they take classes in their major area of study.
Students who major in a scientific area receive a bachelor of science degree, known as a B.S. Students in the arts and humanities get a B.A. — a bachelor of arts. Schools may also offer specialized degrees, like a bachelor of music.
After students have a bachelor’s degree, they may go on to earn a graduate degree — either a master’s degree or a doctorate.
A master’s degree generally takes two to three years of full-time study. A master of business administration, for example, takes about two years to complete. A doctorate can take much longer. It is the highest degree offered in graduate school. Some programs require six years of study or even longer after college.
A student may earn a doctor of philosophy degree, known as a PhD, or a professional degree in an area like medicine, law or education.
We will talk more about graduate programs later in our series.
And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Our Foreign Student Series can be found online at voaspecialenglish.com. If you have a general question, write to special@voanews.com or use the Contact Us link at voaspecialenglish.com. Please tell us your name and where you are. We might answer your question in our reports. I’m Steve Ember.
Foreign Student Series: Accreditation Explained
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Now, we continue our Foreign Student Series for those of you considering an American college or university.
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One of the things you should make sure of is that the work you do will be recognized in your own country. Employers and schools are more likely to accept your American education if it came from an accredited program.
Accreditation is a process used for quality control. Across the United States, there are eighty accrediting agencies for higher education. These are private, nonprofit organizations. They develop educational goals, then examine schools to make sure the goals are met.
The first step is for a college or university to ask for accreditation. The school then measures its performance against the requirements.
After that, the accrediting agency sends a team of specialists to decide whether or not the school meets the standards. Accredited schools are observed every few years to see how they are doing.
Accrediting organizations must be recognized by either the federal government or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. Almost half of all the agencies are recognized by both CHEA and the United States Department of Education.
Higher education groups created CHEA in nineteen ninety-six. But students who want to receive federal student aid must attend a school accredited by a government-recognized agency.
Foreign students might wonder why they should care much about all this. After all, foreign students in most cases do not receive aid from the United States government.
But accreditation is also meant to tell employers that your studies met a set of quality standards. And accreditation can make it easier to move credits from one school to another.
Seven thousand institutions and more than nineteen thousand programs were accredited by American organizations last year. Among them were almost five hundred foreign colleges, as well as foreign campuses of American universities.
All accredited schools and programs can be found on the CHEA Web site, chea.org. It also has advice about how to avoid worthless educational programs and accrediting agencies. We will talk more about that subject next week.
And that’s the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Our Foreign Student Series is online at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Steve Ember.
