Repost: Why Just 1% of Alumni Donate to NUS by Sanctuary

Quoted of: http://meyanze.blogspot.com/2006/10/why-just-1-of-alumni-donate-to-nus.html

I have totally given up on the Straits Times. I have long known that the Straits Times has too many ties with the Singapore Government (read: PAP) to give Singaporeans an unbiased report of the news in Singapore and all over the world. But recent articles that have come to my attention in the newspaper have just led me to believe that the journalists for the Straits Times don't really know how to write very well. I shall talk about that at another time though.

On the front page of today's Straits Times, it is reported that 'Just 1% of alumni donate to NUS', and that

'Only 1,452 alumni, or one in 100 graduates, responded to the university's first call for donations last year.'

This does not surprise me at all. When I was an undergraduate in NUS, I did not feel special, and I definitely did not feel that NUS had given me a competitive edge over anyone else. NUS did not make much of a provision for me because I was a Singaporean. I got to pay only $5K+/year in school fees, a mere 1K less than foreigners, and this was because of the MOE subsidy which was also extended to foreigners (hence the relatively cheap school fees for them). The only 'catch' for foreigners accepting this aid from MOE was that they had to work in Singapore for a stipulated period of time after they had graduated. However, they were not bonded to a specific company. Apparently (from what my foreigner friends told me) all they had to do was work in Singapore (and pay income tax to the Singapore governement I guess).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those who didn't make it to go overseas to study because of my grades, or because of financial problems, who is just lashing out at the Singapore government because I feel it is not doing enough for the average Singaporean. I did get a PSC scholarship to study my subject choice (Biology and Mathematics) in either a US or UK university (my choice), but I had to turn that down because of my parents. Not going to discuss that here.

So basically what I felt of NUS at that time was that Singaporeans were not really given an advantage by studying in their own country, while NUS was really trying to attract foreigners to study there. Nothing much to say about that, because that is basically what the Singapore government is trying to do - attract foreign talent. But what this meant to me was that I didn't feel much for NUS. NUS didn't make me feel important. It was just a place for me to get my degree. I didn't bond with NUS, didn't feel much about the school name. And now that I've graduated, I don't really feel proud of saying I'm an NUS grad the way people would happily announce they are Harvard graduates. Nothing to do with the standard of education in NUS here, it's just that I've never really felt like part of the NUS community.

There was also this point that in USA/UK Universities, most people get their Honours degree in 3 years, and their Masters in their 4th year. This is almost impossible to do in NUS. NUS degrees are very structured. To graduate with Honours, some enormous number of modules have to be completed within 4 years. Yes, 4. This means that if you wanted to do something bizarre like major in Maths and Biology, you'd have to take at least 6 modules/semester, while doing 7-8 modules in some semesters. There used to be a module cap of 5 modules/semester (not sure if there still is), and you were only allowed to do 6 if you had a CAP of 3.8/5.0 or more, which I agree should probably the case if you wanted to take 6 modules. If you wanted to take 7 or more modules you had to specially apply to do so. With the workload required to graduate with a single major (I'm talking about majors here because usually faculties with no majors have fixed timetables across the 4 years needed to graduate, e.g. law and engineering, and you can't really choose to graduate in 3 years or less) with honours, you'd not only have to have advanced placement for some of the first year modules (if not all 4-5 of them) to be able to complete these your course with honours in 3 years or less, you'd have to take 6 or more modules/semester to accomplish this. So basically, most people who want to graduate with honours have to stay in NUS for 4 years, while as an exchange student from UK put it 'Everyone in my university at home gets honours after 3 years, unless they were constantly flunking their modules throughout their stay in the university.'

I shall take this paragraph to laud my friend, Jialu, who actually managed to graduate from NUS Science faculty in 3 years, with double honours in Chemistry and Computing. She is truly amazing, and she could only get advanced placement for the Chemistry modules. She took 8-9 modules per semester, and did 2 honours year projects in her 3rd year. Jialu, I shall always be in awe of you =P.

But for the rest of the not-so-elite NUS students, honours in 3 years is really very hard to obtain. In fact, in my year, because the cutoff for entry into the Honours year was a CAP of 3.8 (for Science faculty that is), more than 1/2 of my Microbiology class didn't qualify for Honours (this CAP has been lowered to 3.5). Which means (to me at least) that just by getting Honours, I'd have graduated in the top 1/2 of my class. Sadly, this is not reflected in the government payscale, which views degrees held by graduates from overseas Universities (ok at least the 'good' ones) in the same light as degrees held by graduates from NUS. This payscale doesn't take into account that overseas, practically everyone graduates with Honours (at least in my field), while in NUS, only the top 1/2 do. At the point of time of my graduation, I roughly estimated that an overseas student graduating with a 2nd Upper would be about the same as an NUS student graduating with a 2nd lower. How good this estimate is, I really can't say. But my point of view was that since almost everyone there will get an honours degree, the top 50 percentile would be getting a 2nd Upper or better, but since only about 50% of NUS students qualify for Honours, and the cummulative CAP of 3.8 for entrance into the Honours year practically ensures that noone doing honours gets less than a 2nd lower, the 2nd Upper from overseas universities is roughly equivalent to those getting 2nd lower from NUS.

When I was applying for University in JC, the tuition fees for Universities in the USA were very different for International and Local students. I ran a check for the fees for the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan, and as Gideon had pointed out to me recently, they are now the same for both International and Local (US) students. Either this or I am really incapabale of finding information using the internet now. However, I remember being rather unhappy that Singapore didn't really 'protect' it's locals by offering (comparitively) lower fees to Singapore students. In my honours year, I was relatively interested in studying post-grad medicine, thanks to my fellow Microbiology honours year student, Huiwen, so I went to look up on the costs. In Australia, the fees for International students were once again much higher than that for locals (have no idea if this is still the case). Hence, the idea that NUS doesn't really cater to Singaporeans (other than actually being in Singapore itself) crossed my mind.

Thus, people who get to study overseas, whether on scholarships or because their parents can afford it, are generally able to come back and start work 1 year earlier than their Singaporean counterparts who choose to do their Honours year. So Singaporeans getting their degrees from NUS have to

1. Study that extra year just to get the same pay as those who got to study overseas

2. Work their ass off in NUS for 3 years to get the same pay at the same time as those who studied overseas

3. Study that extra year, get the same percentile (top 50) as those who studied overseas, and get paid less

4. Not study their honours year and get paid less than both those who studied overseas and those who chose to do their honours year in NUS.

All not very attractive options, I must say.

The Straits Times also makes a very bizarre comparison in it's article.

'The 1per cent response rate pales in comparison to the relative generosity of American university alumni - four in 10 graduates from private universities such as Harvard and Yale open their chequebooks.'

Ok yes this 1% pales in comparison. So how about the public/government universities in USA? How much do THEIR alumni contribute? The Straits Times gives no statistics on this. o.O? NUS is not a private university. Why should this make a difference, you may ask. Well, for starters, the quote there names Harvard and Yale, which are very high ranked universities not only in the USA, but around the globe. University education in the USA isn't as cheap as that in Singapore, and private university education even more so. I would say that if during my stay in NUS, I entered through scholarly merit, and I got 5 digits of financial aid in US dollars per year to make it through my university education, I would probably feel some indebted to the school in some way or another, and would try to contribute back to my alumni. If I was rich and hence able to pay for my 5 digit school fees/year and enter a private university in the US, I might also be inclined to donate to my alumni so that more needy students could benefit from this. If I graduated from Harvard or Yale, and just by writing that name on my resume people would actually take notice, I might (might being the keyword here) feel obliged to donate some money to my university. But NUS offered no such thing to me. In fact, it appears that I should donate to MOE instead because of the tution grant >.<. Perhaps the Straits Times was trying to highlight the fact that universities such as Yale and Harvard are getting donations from their alumni, but NUS is not yet in that league, so I don't really see a comparison there. And the word private already implies that the rich, i.e. those with the money to donate, are the likely ones to study in that school. Doesn't matter that 'private' includes top schools such as Yale and Harvard, where they practice 'need-blind' admittance. Doesn't matter that many of the students from Yale and Harvard could be on financial aid when studying in those schools. There has to be a reason why the Straits Times didn't publish the statistics from public US universities.

NUS Alumni Mr Adrian Seet, 36, made a point that I don't totally agree with.

'The business graduate, who is running a family travel business, said: ''I feel strongly that the Government should pay for the fees and the extras of the needy students. After all, these are the elite of Singapore.'' '

Heehee. The elite of Singapore don't study in NUS lah. They go overseas and graduate with ease with honours in 3 years or less, get their postgraduate in the time NUS students take to get their honours, and come back and get high pays (or break their bonds because they are so elite and companies overseas are also looking for foreign talent). But once again, NUS is not a private institute. That is why there is the tuition grant from MOE. Hence also the idea that the government should take care of needy NUS students.

Let's face it. NUS doesn't really instill in most of its students a sense of belonging. If you see NUS students wearing/using things with the NUS logo, it's most likely because these things are free. People from Harvard would pay to buy their school sweater to wear. Students from NUS clamour over the free windbreakers that are given out to those who represent NUS, but I doubt any of them would actually PAY for one if they were asked to. I have paid for a windbreaker and socks from my secondary school, but I don't think I'd pay for anything with the NUS logo for the sake of the logo. Possibly the only thing I've bought with the NUS logo (other than my degree and transcripts) is that bear from my graduation, and that's only because Ernie wanted to wear a graduation gown too.

Come to think of it, if Microbiology still existed (it is now under LS), and they started a fund for needy Microbiology students, I'd probably contribute, because the Microbiology community was, indeed, a community where I actually felt part of. But of NUS as a whole, I really never felt the sense of belonging. I feel attached to my primary school, even though it is not a 'branded' one. If it accomplishes something, I'd actually be proud to say I came from there, and I would be truly happy that they managed to achieve something. My secondary school and JC are 'branded' and 'elite' in the eyes of most Singaporeans, and although them winning something is probably 'expected', I feel the pain when those in the school do something to blemish the school name, because I do feel like part of that community. However, if NUS wins anything international, I'd tend to see it as Singapore winning something, rather than NUS itself, and perhaps this is why I do not feel obliged to donate to NUS. I feel that I have gotten myself a Singaporean degree, but not really a degree from NUS.