Studying abroad?

Tens of thousands of Pakistanis travel abroad every year for higher education. This usually takes two separate streams: undergraduate education, which means a bachelor’s degree, and graduate education, which means a master’s degree or a doctorate.

Many years ago, I was a student, too. I was part of these streams – first as an undergraduate student and then as a graduate student – and for both of these, my choice of destination was America. When I look back after all these years, I feel I am very lucky to have been able to obtain admission and also to afford such an education.

The rupee has depreciated tremendously against the dollar over the years, making higher education in the US a prohibitively expensive option, so much so that either you have to be super-rich, or must have made money through some other means. Of course, the latter is said in jest and only to highlight the generally exorbitant cost of higher education in that country. However, there is one other feasible option and that is if you (or your child can, in case you happen to be a parent of a prospective university/college student) receive a decent scholarship or financial aid offer from a higher education institution in the US.

There is no guarantee that something like this will even happen, and it’s often better to study at a university in Pakistan and save millions of rupees than go to an institution in the US which isn’t academically very good. Besides, there are several universities in Pakistan such as IBA Karachi, LUMS, Habib University, Szabist, NUST, FAST, Institute of Business Management, Beaconhouse National University, GIKI, GCU University, Kinnaird College and so on which can provide quality education at a fraction of the cost. The problem, however, is that parents – in the mistaken belief that their child should have the stamp of a foreign degree – put their whole life savings as well as current earnings towards financing education in an institution that may be just as good, or likely worse, than local options.

Other than America, which arguably has the most competitive system of higher education in the world, students in Pakistan also have the option of studying in Canada, the UK or Australia, and now increasingly in Europe, and countries like Turkey, Malaysia, or even the UAE. Canada has been facing an internal debate on letting too many immigrants and international students in, and the result has been a planned significant reduction of student visas for the coming years. Its attraction to Pakistani students as a destination for higher learning should be seen in this changing context.

Studying in a UK university saves a student a year at the undergraduate level because a bachelor’s degree there is for three years, compared to four years in the US. Not only does it save a year’s worth of time, but the overall cost will also be less since the duration is less by at least one year. That said, a degree in the UK is focused from the beginning and much of the coursework doesn’t allow for any experimentation of any kind, which is something a US university or college does provide. For instance, since an undergraduate degree in the US is usually for four years, students have the chance to experiment and take various courses outside of their intended field of concentration or major. That is an opportunity that most students who study in the Pakistani system of education are unlikely to get in the sense that there’s generally very little option to experiment – and not only that, most families and in particular parents tend to look down on this so students have all these social pressures to deal with.

Students in Pakistan who plan to pursue higher education overseas also have the option to apply to Europe. Most of these universities are relatively cheap than their counterparts in the US or the UK. And in most cases, the teaching is in English, though learning the local language is highly recommended. In recent times, universities in the Netherlands, Germany and Italy have become quite popular with Pakistani students – in both the Netherlands and Italy, there is a sizeable and growing local Pakistani community as well. And with an expected tightening of the visa regime in the US under the new Trump administration and similar expected restrictions in Canada, Europe is likely going to become an even more attractive option for especially those Pakistani students who have made up their mind to study overseas.

Of course, one key element in all this is sorely lacking in Pakistan – and that is counselling. Counselling for colleges and universities offered by schools in Pakistan is generally poor or non-existent. Counsellors have by and large not studied abroad themselves and have no idea of the process and can hardly be expected to guide and counsel students. This has given rise to a handful of college counselling firms but these cater mostly to students from very rich backgrounds and they generally charge their fees in dollars. In other words, the bulk of students who wish to study overseas basically have to do everything on their own, from making a list to filling out applications to writing the required essays and so on.

The writer is a journalist based in Karachi. He tweets/posts @omar_quraishi and can be reached at: omarrquraishi@gmail.com