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I think there are two reasons why you would see a spike in internationals in a graduate cohort and their number being less in an undergraduate class: 1) experience. most of the international students mentioned in the article from India, China, Turkey, Korea want to have that experience of going to a school in a different country, meeting students from around the globe, listen to lectures and work with people from different background and skills, I think this is something you would certainly lack if you choose to go to grad school in the same geography you got your undergraduate education. Think about this for an American student, who is not so motivated to go to grad school because environment wise it is not going to be a whole lot different than the professors you had for your undergrad class. I'm curious to see numbers for American undergrads who have gone to Europe or Japan to get their graduate degrees for the experience, this might actually be skewed because half the students here in America gets that experience through study abroad programs. 2) cost. the article says there is a very small number of undergraduate internationals compared to graduate student population, it comes down to cost. if you were coming from India, China or the other foreign countries mentioned in the article money wise it would be very expensive for you to pay for 4 years of undergraduate degree compared to 2 years of masters, PhD can be an outlier here, but it has its own benefits. so if you can get an undergraduate degree without causing a dent in your bank account and if you are almost certain that you will eventually go get a masters degree in another country, budget wise that's the most smart thing to do. by the time you are done with your undergrad you'd have a good school experience to go to another country, blend in, and go through school. The reason I mentioned about PhD being an outlier is, with a doctoral degree you might end up being a professor or a research scientist, but when it comes to a masters vs bachelors, chances are, for most of them, you both will likely end up in a similar job at Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and others. so why pay twice to get there. not to forget, you might end up with some sort of funding while doing a graduate degree compared to undergraduate. |