According to Minh Duc, an American student, studying abroad is not all rosy, and neither are the billions of dong in scholarships.
Bui Minh Duc, 30 years old, is a student of Communications at Clark University, Massachusetts, USA, under the Fulbright scholarship program sponsored by the US Government. During the process of applying for scholarships and studying in the US, Minh Duc believes that we need to be more realistic about the value of billions of VND of scholarships.
Compared to about 10 years ago, I see that the understanding of studying abroad among Vietnamese parents and students has become much more realistic. Studying abroad is not a red carpet, rolled out before students and ensuring a good job after returning home, and multi-billion scholarships are not all rosy.
Of course, any amount of scholarship money is valuable, especially for top schools with fierce competition. But it must be noted that education in the US is a huge business and awarding scholarships is also a strategy of universities. They have also calculated carefully enough to know whether the profits earned if giving away one or more billions of dollars in scholarships are commensurate or not.
First , if you put a billion dollars (as an illustrative figure) into the big picture of tuition at an American university, you'll see a huge difference.
According to US News , the average amount a student has to pay for tuition in 2020-2021 at private universities is about $35,087 (more than 820 million VND), public universities $21,184. Reputable, highly ranked schools will have tuition 2-3 times this amount. At Clark University, where I am studying for my master's degree, undergraduate tuition is about $50,000 a year.
Universities often award scholarships on a percentage basis, for example 25-50% for four years, or 100% for the first year and then the student pays tuition. The generosity of the scholarship also depends on the reputation of the school. I have found that scholarships at smaller, less prestigious schools are generally higher than those at larger schools.
In general, with a scholarship of one billion VND, not counting the case that tuition fees will increase every year, the family still has to pay at least another three billion VND for four years of tuition.
It should be added that there are cases where students receive full tuition scholarships from American universities. However, the competition for these scholarships is fierce. Government scholarships, which usually cover 100% of tuition, are mainly at the master's level.
Minh Duc at Clark University campus, USA, May 2023. Photo: Character provided
Second, tuition fees usually only account for 40-60% of the total cost of studying abroad, so even with scholarships, the actual amount that families have to pay is still very large.
In addition to tuition fees, students will have to pay visa fees, airfare, accommodation, study materials, insurance, travel expenses..., depending on the area the international student chooses.
For example, I live in Worcester, Massachusetts. Worcester is not as big as Boston, but Massachusetts is expensive in general. It is considered a college town, so many expenses are higher. If you do not live in a dormitory, students spend about $600-900 on rent outside, $300-400 on food every month, not including other living expenses. About $1,500 is considered the basic cost of living for students in the city where I am studying.
Full scholarships for university tuition are hard to come by, and full scholarships that cover living expenses are even rarer. So when you add up the numbers above, many parents will have a more realistic view of the cost of studying abroad and realize that a billion-dollar scholarship is just a part of the long journey of studying abroad.
For many universities, the reality is that granting scholarships is just a policy of "discounting" products to stimulate consumer demand - in this case, parents and students. It is like a sales negotiation: The two sides will bargain back and forth until they find a common number. On official documents, that negotiation is called "scholarship".
Bui Minh Duc
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