31/01/2006 | Newsletter, QS Research

QS Research - the postgraduate world in 2005

By: Tim Rogers

Finally, costs. Your choice of where to study so often hinges on how much it actually costs for academic tuition and living expenses. Financial aid and scholarship packages are commonplace, either offered by individual institutions or national governments, keen to encourage the very best international students to their country. But these schemes tend to be devilishly competitive and heavily oversubscribed. In the QS Research/QS World Grad School Tour survey, where respondents were asked to rank in order of priority their major source of financing for postgraduate study, 82% indicated they were relying on some form of scholarship funding to cover their costs. However, a change in years gone by is the number of candidates willing to fund part of their studies themselves. The perceived benefits of postgraduate study also contribute to the willingness of applicants to take on financial responsibility for their period of study. 54% of all respondents to the survey indicated they would be prepared to take out a loan to underwrite their postgraduate programme, while 64% indicated that they would also be able to make a contribution to their postgraduate tuition fees from their own funds. 51% of respondents also claimed they would be able to derive some element of funding from their parents or extended family. Some countries allow you to offset these costs by allowing you to work as well as study, but this is not the case everywhere. As a very broad guide, quality and brand of a particular postgraduate programme tends to be associated with high cost � as with anything in contemporary society.

In the information age that we live in, finding out about international postgraduate study opportunities is relatively simple, but discovering useful and valid information is not so easy. Many websites and publications purport to offer definitive guides and surveys on what is the �best� university or the �best� programme of study, but so often these publications are misleading. The best place to start your research is the relatively unsophisticated approach of actually talking to people who already have postgraduate experience � where and what did they study? Why did they study? What was it like? Would they recommend it as (a) an academic experience, (b) as a life experience or (c) as a way of enhancing their career prospects? Institutional websites and prospectuses are also good points of reference to get a full understanding of the programmes of study offered, who is teaching the programme and what you can expect from the academic experience. Moreover, international organisations such as The British Council, IDP, USIS, Fulbright and EduFrance represent all the institutions in their particular country and can be good sources of basic information on teaching methods, costs, scholarships and accommodation issues. But the opportunity to meet admissions staff and academics of institutions you are interested in is also something you should seek. It is rarely practical to travel to your prospective institution for a visit or interview, but touring education fairs such as the QS World Grad School Tour, held in October and November this year in 25 cities across Europe, Asia, North and Latin America, provide an exciting platform for potential students and universities to meet one another. Such events tend to offer a dynamic and worthwhile format for those seeking information on Masters and PhD programmes and opportunities to have all of your questions answered. Further details are available at http://www.topgraduate.com.