The American Approach to College Is the Winning One

“Although many of us may still be encouraged at family dinner tables to pursue stable and lucrative careers in high-paying industries, such as finance, consulting, and medicine, perhaps the curriculum of a general education can help some find their true interests.”

The United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom all have different approaches to higher education. While American colleges give their students the opportunity to sample different subjects—sometimes even requiring it—before declaring their major in the second year, students in the U.K. are typically asked to pick an area of study at the time of university application. The Canadian system is more similar to the British one, though each university devises unique policies and allows varying degrees of freedom for students to explore options. Meanwhile, universities in other English-speaking nations such as Australia, Scotland, Ireland, and New Zealand more closely follow the British approach, having students apply to a specific program with a fixed curriculum rather than a general education.

I’m from Canada, but I attend Duke University in North Carolina. A question I often field is: “Why did you want to come to the United States for college?”

That question used to always make me pause for a second. Thinking about it, my Canadian tuition would have been much cheaper. The average tuition is $6,653 in Canada, but it’s $35,676 for a private American college. And my parents—though they’re the ones who wanted to push me away from home and challenge me in the first place—wouldn’t be complaining that they are now so far away from their only child.