Looking in the wrong places

I've made no secret on this blog that I'm leaning toward going back to college. As I said previously, my main targets are Japan and New Zealand. Australia is too expensive and will probably remain so for some time, and I've yet to find schools in places like South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc. that will take older undergrads.

It turns out I've been overlooking one low-profile but apparently high-value option: the Philippines.

Thousands of foreign university students are flocking to the Philippines, attracted by cheap yet high-quality courses conducted in English and an easy-going lifestyle outside class.

With more than 2,100 private and state-run institutions nationwide offering a wide array of courses, and an immigration policy friendly to foreign students, the former American colony is enjoying an enrolment boom.

Nearly 20,000 foreign students held special visas at the end of the school year in March, according to the immigration bureau, which said the number would rise when classes began in June.

Not exactly the first place one thinks of for a quality education, is it? I remember George Carlin using going to dental school in the Philippines in one of his jokes on "Complaints and Grievances."

There might not be much prestige in a degree from the Philippines, but I imagine this would soften the blow a bit:

A four-year degree course in the Philippines costs between $1,000 and $2,500 a year, significantly cheaper than in the United States, for example, where one could spend more than $30,000 annually, educators here say.

Hmmmmmm. I'm already inured to awful traffic, low pay and living far from home. It's certainly not my first choice, but if a degree from the Philippines can actually be competitive in the US and/or Asia, who knows?