HYDERABAD: With the shrinking portions of American pie, students aspiring to pursue higher education in the promised land are reworking their options. Severe cuts in the budget earmarked for government research agencies such as National Institute of Health (NIH) as well as government funded projects in the universities has resulted in more students from the city looking at economic options such as Canada and Singapore.Since the available funding is going to reduce, the chances of getting a fellowship and tuition waiver to study in the US seems bleak. “If I can’t get admission into a partially-funded or fully-funded programme, my best bet will be to apply to Europe, especially Germany or Sweden. Australia is definitely not on the list, given its reputation for hate-crimes,” says Pratyusha Chelikani, a professional who will be applying for M.S programme abroad.Countries such as Germany, Canada and Singapore are now on top of the list for students interested in studying abroad. The fact that many of the European countries such as Norway, Germany and Finland offer tuition-free education to native and international students, make them a destination of choice. “When faced with the proposition of having to pay for the course, most of the students go in for the smaller countries as it is cheaper than shelling out large sums for the same course in the US or UK,” says an overseas consultant at Begumpet.“Though Australia was my first option, I chose Singapore for pursuing my MBA as it was an overseas campus of an Australian university. While the degree awarded was the same, I could cut down on my expenditure on education by half” says S. Adithya, who is currently employed in the city.Wooing Asian students to boost earnings from the international education sector is a trend countries have caught on. While US and UK evolve strict measures to restrict the number of students getting in every year learning from experiences such as the Tri-Valley incident, countries such as Ireland and Canada are bringing the complete range of academic fare on a platter to India by operating through select agents to boost the numbers.
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