Some academic counselling centres have reported two-fold increases in the numbers of students registering to study abroad, with English-speaking countries still at the top of lists of destinations.

Students are asking for information about training courses

Trang said that her parents have stable incomes and a reasonable plan for her overseas studies; therefore, Trang does not need financial aid from schools.

Nguyen Thi Lich, who lives on Nguyen Chi Thanh street in Hanoi, related that she has been saving money so her daughter can study abroad for seven years.

Lich said that she leases a house, and she has been depositing all the money from the house at banks to fund her daughter’s studies.

Ha Viet Hang, Head of the Overseas Study Consultancy Division under ISC, an academic counselling centre, said that the crisis seems not to be affecting wealthy people’s plans to send children abroad for studying, except for the children of securities or real estate investors. In general, every family has savings they do not touch because they are reserved for funding children’s educations.

Tran Thi Dan, Director of Sunrise Overseas Consultancy Centre, also said that Vietnamese families can send their children abroad even in the crisis because they have been saving money for many years.

“Sometimes we get parents who bring 6-year-old children. This means that parents prepare for their children’s studies very early,” Dan said.

Overseas study consultancy centres still doing well

According to ISC, the number of students who have completed formalities to study in the UK and New Zealand through ISC has increased by two fold since the beginning of 2009.

Meanwhile, Duc Anh Overseas Study Consultancy Centre Lu Thi Hong Nham said that the number of students coming to the centre in the first months of the year increased by 30 percent in comparison with 2008.

Nham said that English-speaking countries like the US, UK and Australia remain the top choices of Vietnamese students. Other markets, though having lower fees, are not as attractive.

Dan said that previously Vietnamese students liked studying in France because of tuition preferences. However, France has become unattractive as universities there are now collecting fees. Students do not have to pay tuition fees to study in Germany, but they have to pass the university entrance exams in Vietnam and meet the requirements in Germany to be eligible to study in that country.

Director of the Institute for International Education (IIE) in Vietnam, Dr Mark Ashwill, said that Vietnamese students are especially interested in studying in the US. The number of Vietnamese students going to IIE’s consultancy centres between January and March was 24 percent higher than last year.

Currently, the US proves to be the second most-attractive market to Vietnamese students, just after Australia.

Mr Ashwill said that community colleges are a popular destination for Vietnamese students, because after finishing two years of studying at colleges with relatively low costs, students can transfer credits to many universities.

Seventy percent of the visas for students were granted by the US General Consulate in Vietnam to students studying at community colleges. Vietnam now ranks third among countries with the largest number of students studying at community colleges in the US.

Lan Huong