US Embassy official: More Trinis interested in US Universities

THERE has been a sizeable increase in the number of TT students showing an interest in attending universities in the US and Canada as over 4000 attended the annual US College fair yesterday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Port of Spain.

According to the US Embassy’s Charge D’Affaires AJ Jagelski yesterday, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of students showing an interest to pursue their studies abroad and said while there has been a long history of TT students attending universities abroad, several campuses have not hosted local students but were willing to open their doors in an effort to boost attendance.

“This is our largest ever College Fair, yesterday we had about 4000 students. The interest is definitely there, last year 1500 people from Trinidad or Tobago went to the US to study and there’s a lot of universities in the room that don’t have a single Trinidadian or Tobagonian students, so they are here because they want a student from TT to come and study,” Jagelski said.

Jagelski said campuses from the US and Canada offered a wide range of programmes at both the undergraduate and the postgraduate level and noted that males as well as females showed an interest in applying to universities abroad.

He also said unlike previous years, more students were also showing an interest in programmes that were aimed towards trade schools and said while academic programmes were still highly sought after, there was an increasing interest in shorter programmes aimed at developing preparedness for the job market.