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Studying in America: Pros and Cons

Shortly after Mikhail Gorbachev opened the door on America, more than 5,000 Russian undergraduate, graduate and exchange students went to the United States. Nearly all of them got there through their connections, and only a few distinguished themselves academically. A little later, when the era of so-called New Russians set in, a defining factor in going to a U.S. university was being flush with money – by Russian standards. Today a higher education in the United States can cost up to several hundred thousand dollars, but this does little to discourage Russia’s rich.

According to Princeton University experts, at present there are 3,000 “self-supporting” undergraduates and graduates from Russia, and about 1,000 students from other CIS countries in America. The cost of tuition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the most prestigious and expensive training establishment in the United States today (with an estimated 30 Russian students), is almost $35.000 a year. Adding in the cost of housing, food, transport, and textbook, the total can be double that amount. As the course lasts for four to five years, Russians studying here need to have a very sound financial base to be able to complete their studies. Incidentally, the other so-called top ten universities are not far behind: John Hopkins, $33,000 a year; Yale, 33,000; Harvard, $32,000; Georgetown, Washington, $32,000, etc. All of these universities have Russian students, and experts believe that they are the main target of local head-hunters.

The fact is that by paying so much money for a course of training, parents secure not simple a promising career but also financial future for their children. A well-paid job will fully recoup tuition costs within three to four years after graduation. Any company in any part of the world will welcome a Harvard alumnus.

At first, Russian undergraduates at U.S. universities feel unhappy about what they see as oversimplified curricula with some of the material already covered in high school in Russia. But the balance is soon redressed, and they have an opportunity to advance academically without any limit, while those with a good head on their shoulders can get a highly paid job. The main attraction to a student from Russia is the prospect of a good job abroad. No Russia Company can pay a recent university graduate $60,000 to $65,000 a year while in the United States and Europe this is standard practice. Still, the majority of Russians graduating from even the most prestigious of American universities does not stay in the United State but go home.

What is the outlook for them in Russia? Survey shows that they mainly go to work for their parents’ companies or foreign companies operating in Russia.

This, however, does not apply to alumni of the top American universities. At the same time Russians whose parents are not very rich enroll in American universities that do not guarantee a job even to U.S. citizens.

Say, tuition at Maryland State University, a half hour’s drive from the U.S. capital, is a mere $13,000 a year. There are approximately 20 Russians at the university – mainly children of Russian World Bank employees, as well as of provincial businessmen from Lipetsk, Saratov, Kaliningrad, and even Nakhodka. Incidentally, these students are not particularly concerned by the fact that they will have little chance of getting a decent, well-paid job with a degree from Maryland University. All of them are going to return home to get, under their parents’ protection, a cushy job in the sphere of international relations or business.

Student exchange programs – a widespread practice in the late Gorbachev era and early in the Yeltsin era – are virtually nonexistent today. Russia’s higher schools have no money for that, to say nothing about students themselves.

Moreover, there are very few of those wishing to do just one or two terms. Those who do come have difficulty getting a foothold in the United States, especially in the sphere of social sciences. True, there are various advance training programs funded by the U.S. government: the MacArthur, Hurbert Humphrey, Muskie, Eleanor Roosevelt, and other programs. Only individual Russian undergraduate/graduate students and teachers get on such programs. But these people, by their own admission simply hope to make some money, not pursue any useful academic program. It is certainly prestigious, and potentially beneficial, to get a degree in the United States, especially if one plans to live and work abroad (preferably in North America, since there is some allergy to a U.S. diploma in Europe). But in Russia, someone with a degree from an American university is unlikely to automatically land a high-level job at Gasprom or LUKoil. Still, is not impossible, especially if their tuition in the States was paid for by people near the top in these companies.