Stay Home to Study Abroad
Recent years, many students choose to go abroad for their further study. Normally, there are two ways for them to afford their life over the seas: scholarships or family contribution. Given that only qualified students, whose number takes up less than a half of the total amounts, have access to the scholarships and tuition is an amazing number for common families in China, people who are less qualified for scholarships and short for money to pay for the high tuition turn to the Internet. Meanwhile, most famous universities abroad upload the videos of their classes to the Internet. In my view, staying home to study abroad is good for domestic people.
On the one hand, more people can participate in classes of high quality from abroad. Before the classes from abroad being public to anyone who click on them, only students enrolled in those universities can experience the top classes. However, now, due to the spirit of free sharing, open classes from well-known universities are available to domestic students and even office workers who can have classes after their work. According to the latest data, the average number of hits on open classes abroad on Sina Web who has collected all the open classes has exceeded 300 thousand. Compared to the past when merely hundreds of students sit listening to a lecture in the classroom, the increase in number of audience is obvious. In this sense, much more domestic people join in the study of foreign open classes.
On the other hand, the way of staying home to study abroad is economical for domestic learners. As we all know, the total cost, including the high tuition and life expenses, over the seas is 200 thousand yuan at least per year. Since the average income of domestic family per year is about 70thousand yuan, it is impossible for most of the households to afford a campus life so expensive abroad. Therefore, world-class universities’ putting open classes on the Internet caters for the demands from these households. Take Harvard as an example: the average tuition per year is about 250 yuan, and the accommodation fee is about 90 thousand yuan, tie total of which is 340 thousand yuan. In this sense, it is absolutely economical for domestic people to stay home to study abroad.
In conclusion, staying home to study abroad is beneficial to domestic people, because of its features of extensive participation and economy. I hope more renowned universities abroad will put their classes on the Internet in the near future.