New trend in the UK: send your kids to US colleges

I read about a new trend in the UK -- sending your kid to a US college. I can see why you might do this if you were American already but doing it as an English parent to an English kid seems odd.

American colleges are way more expensive than UK ones plus it takes four years to get a degree over there, as opposed to three here. Say you pay £3,290 a year for UK tuition -- well it's £16,900 over there. And you have to fund them for four years. A better idea, I think, is to get your kids' BA degree over here then get them on a scholarship for an MA there -- plus MA degrees can only take a year to get. So you have the cachet of an international education AND you have saved some dough.

Here's part of the article I read:

The wine is flowing at a dinner party in London. A successful baby-boomer father turns to the woman on his lefft and boasts: "Chloe's at Oxford you know." But she merely raises an eyebrow and says, "Henry's at Yale." In the silence that follows the man realizes he's missed a trick. This is the nightmare scenario propelling today's pushy parents to go one step further for their children. The bar has been raised. The best British universities no longer carry enough cachet to impress.

And another reason: "English girls find the brash Abercrombie-and-Fitch wearing American hunks alluring; the Ivy League alumni are enough to make any girl gibber." (from the Times)

Comments on this article from Facebook:

Katie Thomas
'scuse me i ain't gonna be attracted to no brash american boy just cause he an american.

Lisa Raspopovich
Dang, I'm sad it's a trend because I'm hoping Mil will want to go to uni in the states.

Martin Searle
Bye, then. Don't hurry back.

Debra Hill Frewin
Ali's already decided she wants to go to Princeton. I said, "GREAT!! start saving!!!" (so she is)