{"id":661,"date":"2026-03-30T09:25:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T09:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/661\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T09:25:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T09:25:27","slug":"ceo-sent-her-gen-z-kid-to-college-in-london-to-cut-her-tuition-bill-in-half","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/661\/","title":{"rendered":"CEO sent her Gen Z kid to college in London to cut her tuition bill in half"},"content":{"rendered":"

American parents (and students) weighing whether a U.S. college degree is still worth<\/a> the hefty debt might want to hear what one philanthropy CEO did instead\u2014she dodged six-figure tuition bills by sending her daughter to university in London.<\/p>\n

It sounds counterintuitive. Flights, a foreign city, and a flat in one of the world\u2019s most expensive capitals. But for Greater Good Charities CEO, Liz Baker, saving roughly $50,000-a-year, has been well worth the added admin of sending her kid off to study abroad.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we started to look, we were like, \u2018this is so much cheaper,\u2019\u201d she recalled to Fortune.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tuition in London for her daughters\u2019 courses comes in at around $35,000 a year, versus the $80,000 to $90,000 out-of-state U.S. bill they were initially bracing for. \u201cSo it\u2019s like, really half the price,\u201d Baker said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As someone who has spent years running a nonprofit\u2014scrutinizing budgets, tracking impact, and deciding where every dollar goes furthest\u2014she\u2019s perhaps better placed than most to do the math. \u201cI always tell people who have kids that are going to college, you should look at the UK,\u201d Baker added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even paying for a flat in Central London is still cheaper than U.S. college costs<\/p>\n

Her oldest daughter has now completed an undergraduate degree at King\u2019s College London and is currently studying a master\u2019s at the London School of Economics, all while living in the heart of England\u2019s capital city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEven paying for a flat in like Central London is cheaper than sending her to college here, because she was looking at UC Santa Barbara.\u201d A staggering 747 km (or a 10-hour drive) from Arizona, where they were living at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Essentially, wherever Baker\u2019s children went to university, they\u2019d have to factor in accommodation costs on top of tuition fees anyway\u2014and even with London rent costing north of \u00a32,000 ($2,700) a month, it still worked out cheaper than the American alternative once accommodation costs were stacked on top of that six-figure tuition bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it\u2019s expensive. But again, tuition out of state at any college is more expensive,\u201d Baker added.<\/p>\n

She also shaved off an entire year of college costs. One of the quiet quirks of the British system is that most undergraduate degrees last three years\u2014and if students arrive with enough Advanced Placement (AP) credits, (good grades equal more points) they can often skip an extra foundation year some international students need.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy one daughter did all of the AP classes, so she didn\u2019t have to do a foundation year,\u201d Baker explained. \u201cSo then you take into account that school is three years,\u00a0 and so then you eliminate that cost, and even master\u2019s are shorter.\u201d<\/p>\n

One year cut alone can shave tens of thousands of dollars off the total bill for international students, whose annual tuition typically ranges from about \u00a311,400 to \u00a338,000 (roughly $14,000 to $50,000), depending on the course and university.<\/p>\n

A $1.7 trillion student debt crisis is making the UK look like the smarter option<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the debt that worries Baker\u2014it\u2019s what (if anything) students are getting in return. Many grads are now walking off U.S. campuses with eye-watering debt but no clear path into a well-paying job<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

U.S. student debt has surpassed $1.7 trillion; meanwhile, the unemployment rate<\/a> for fresh-faced grads just keeps rising.<\/p>\n

Now, millions of graduates are questioning whether their degree was worth the price tag, and a growing chorus of the world\u2019s most powerful CEOs is starting to agree with them. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon<\/a> has said he never hires for educational pedigree alone. Amazon\u2019s Andy Jassy<\/a> has said an \u201cembarrassing amount\u201d of your success depends on attitude, not credentials. And with AI quietly replacing entry-level roles that generations of graduates relied on to justify their loans, the premium higher education once held is eroding fast.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why Baker thinks young people need to question the return on investment more than ever: \u201cIf you leave with an English degree, and you have $200,000-plus in debt from student loans\u2014why would you do that?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She genuinely believes her kids are getting more bang for their buck in Britain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not only are UK degrees shorter, but they\u2019re also more specialised. Students typically focus on one subject and study it exclusively for the entire duration of their degree\u2014every module, every year, laser-locked on their chosen field.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Crucially, in her eyes, they\u2019re better aligned with the skills employers actually want<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the curriculum is better because it\u2019s more focused,\u201d Baker said, while adding that when she took her musical theater and criminal justice degree, she had to take irrelevant classes that she\u2019d never use in a career, like \u201cEarth science.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And when asked whether a British degree holds up against an American one in the eyes of employers, the CEO didn\u2019t hesitate: \u201cYeah. 100%.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"American parents (and students) weighing whether a U.S. college degree is still worth the hefty debt might want…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[418,419,420,421,28,422,423,424,27,253,425,426,427,428,429,430,431,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-661","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-amazon","9":"tag-andy-jassy","10":"tag-colleges-and-universities","11":"tag-debt","12":"tag-education","13":"tag-gen-z","14":"tag-goldman-sachs-group","15":"tag-lifestyle","16":"tag-london","17":"tag-money","18":"tag-money-management","19":"tag-philanthropy","20":"tag-student-loans-and-debt","21":"tag-students","22":"tag-u-k-economy","23":"tag-u-s-economy","24":"tag-uk-economy","25":"tag-wealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}