Postgrad mirage.

Byline: Waliya Mirza

IN the 1970s-80s, being a Pakistani working abroad meant you had achieved an unparalleled level of success. You were earning in a foreign currency, part of an elite professional diaspora (doctors, engineers, businessmen, etc) and thriving in supportive economies. While nostalgia for their days abroad is aplenty among older generations, younger Pakistanis might find it difficult to identify what makes life abroad unique today.

Let's speak strictly of higher education. Earlier, one would be hard pressed to find Pakistanis with a foreign degree. Now, with globalisation commodifying international education, the pressure to attain a foreign degree is undeniably high. Undergraduates bide their time, accumulate a few years' worth of experience and apply for an MSc, MBA or MA in their preferred areas of study. With the advent of a number of hot-ticket scholarships such as the Fulbright, Chevening and the Commonwealth, droves of them are drawn to acquiring a foreign postgraduate programme.

These days, graduates entering the job market find key positions already filled with people with an international education. Everyone has a Master's degree, and almost always not from Pakistan. They can be found in all sectors, from social to corporate to technical industries.

When and how did this happen? The foreign postgraduate storm has played out in Pakistan for some time now. It is worth examining how different things are today than they were 40 years ago. Previously, tuition rates for both private and public universities in foreign countries were low, owing to a very different economic setup. Inflation was low, investment in education up, and enrolment much lower than it is today.

The pressure to attain a foreign degree is high.

The international competitiveness of a foreign postgraduate degree is exciting; it is also what makes the funding experience different than before, when international students were less common. The middle-class Pakistani dream is thus facing a crisis: education is becoming more common and, as a result, less distinguished. Not only does this have an impact on graduates' job market value, it reduces the value of the inflated 'study abroad' experience.

Graduates of international postgraduate programmes are expected to display a level of technical sophistication as they work. In exchange, they are paid higher salaries, and offered more work responsibilities. The equation seems simple enough; but the distinction of a...