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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kids might want to go to Canadian or British universities in the next couple of years, and I fully expect that Covid will be endemic, with regular waves of cases, regular booster shots and perhaps occasional travel restrictions.

1. If your child was able to go in person to a foreign university during the pandemic, how did you manage travel or other restrictions? Were parents allowed access to campus to visit their child?

2. Going forward, what do you think about letting your child enroll in a foreign university if there's a possibility you might be prevented from going with them to set up or to fetch them home in case something happens?

Thanks for your thoughts. [/quote]

Keep in mind that there are a lot of English-language bachelor’s programs outside of English-speaking countries. I wouldn’t send a kid who speaks only English to those places, but, if you have a kid who’s had four years of French, Spanish or German, I’d look at programs in countries that match the kid’s second language.

I think a typical good Canadian university probably handles COVID just like a U.S. school. The same for an English school with dorms

Universities in other places may have dorms only as a courtesy to international students. They generally think of university students as independent adults, and the students may end up in apartments, rather than dorms. Visiting students in those places would be like visiting any other relatives there.

European countries tend have the same jumble of COVID rules we have. Some places have tougher rules than others, and how well people abide by the rules varies from place to place. My experience is that European countries make it a lot easier for parents to visit their university student kids than for ordinary tourists to visit. So, as long as you’re vaccinated, even if the rules change, you’ll probably be able to visit your kid. The situation won’t be any worse than if you were visiting a child at Stanford.

I think the ideal would be to send a kid to a country where you have relatives.

If that’s not possible, maybe it’s worth it to focus on schools with a lot of American students, that have people who handle this stuff, or pay for the kind of consultant that may charge a lot but does stuff like help your kid get a cell phone and has some people in the target country.

In general, if a kid is going to another country for a bachelor’s that should be a mature, independent kid who has done things like handling the college application process and going to medical checkups independently, and who understands that hurricanes, earthquakes and pandemics happen. You should go to the target country to use your credit cards and ID to help your kid deal with move-in bureaucracy, but your kid should also have some ability to deal with bureaucracy and buy airplane tickets.

Assuming your kid is a resourceful, mature kid, your kid should be in charge of dealing with ordinary emergencies, like booking a flight home. You shouldn’t have to go over to get your kid.

[b]In case your kid got very sick, your kid should have the best possible insurance for the target country. Pay a fee to an insurance consultant there, if necessary, to get the coverage and understand the limitations. Don’t assume European countries will be so wonderful about health coverage for non-EU students. The cheap student policies are often trash. 
[/b]
You should also try to see if your kid can have a full year of the kind of medical evacuation coverage that comes with travel policies. That kind of coverage might have benefits you could use to travel to your child in an emergency. If you post in the money forum here, maybe people there would know which policies are the best.

And I think that if you can, it would always be good to have someone in the target region who could give your kid some help in a crisis. If, say, the school doesn’t have a coordinator who can help, and you have no relatives there, maybe you can persuade your kid to go to religious services, and maybe the pastor, priest, rabbi, etc. could be that person. Or, try to set up some kind of relationship with a lawyer, accountant or social worker there. Just anyone who could visit your kid or offer advice in an emergency. [/quote]

If the student is in England, they will be covered by the NHS so health care is free - as it is for everyone else living there. Same for places like Germany. You need to look deeper into this before you waste money on a private health insurance package. The only people with health insurance in these countries are the chronically ill and wealthy who need to be seen more quickly.[/quote]

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