The FINANCIAL — Australia is the most expensive destination for overseas students, according to research from HSBC. The average international student would need USD42,000 a year to meet university fees and living costs in the country.
The research was carried out by Ipsos MORI on behalf of HSBC’s Retail Banking and Wealth Management (RBWM) business, drawing on publicly available sources including university websites. Singapore, the US and the UK were the next most expensive of the 15 destinations examined, with average annual costs of more than USD35,000. Costs in the least expensive destination, India, were less than one fifth of those in Australia.
The Value of Education survey found that more than half of parents (51 per cent) rated the US among the top three countries in the world for quality of education. It was the clear leader in terms of reputation. The UK came second. Australia’s reputation was strong in Asian countries: it was ranked among the top three by parents in Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, according to HSBC Group.
Comparing the Value of Education findings with the latest cost data on attending universities abroad suggests that, broadly speaking, parents think that expensive destinations also tend to offer a higher quality of education.
Parents will have to plan carefully if they want their children to study in these locations. More than half of those surveyed for the Value of Education wished they had started saving for their children’s education earlier, according to HSBC Group.
“The key reasons to send children overseas are the acquisition of foreign languages, international experience, and independence. But an international education brings an extra dimension of complexity to planning, particularly financial planning. The majority of overseas education is privately funded by parents, and while the concept of a college fund is well established in the US, it is still the exception elsewhere,” Simon Williams, Group Head of Wealth Management, HSBC, said.
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