EDUCATION REPORT - Foreign Student Series #25: M.I.T.

By Nancy Steinbach

Broadcast: February 17, 2005

I'm Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Education Report.

Today we answer a question from Nigeria as part of our series for students interested in a college or university in the United States. Muhammad Aminu Idris in Zaria wants to know about the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He asks what M.I.T. has done for computer development.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is in the northeastern United States. It is in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston. M.I.T. says its goal is to improve knowledge and educate students in areas that will best serve the world in the twenty-first century.

The school is world famous for its scientific research through programs such as the Laboratory for Computer Science. Members of that laboratory helped develop the Internet as well as an earlier system called the Arpanet. They have also helped develop the Ethernet, the World Wide Web, digital computers and more.

M.I.T. has more than ten thousand students and nine hundred professors. It is organized into schools of engineering and science, and the School of Architecture and Planning. Two others are the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, and the College of Health Sciences and Technology. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is also home to the Sloan School of Management.

More than ten thousand students tried for a place in the undergraduate programs at M.I.T. in two thousand four. The school accepted about one thousand six hundred of them.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has almost three thousand foreign students. They come from more than one hundred countries around the world, but mostly from Asia.

More than two thousand international students applied to M.I.T. last year. One hundred four were admitted.

The cost of one year at M.I.T. is more than thirty thousand dollars. The university offers financial aid for all students, including those from other nations.

Internet users can find detailed information about international student aid at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Web site(mit.edu.

We began our Foreign Student Series in September. All the reports so far can be found at voaspecialenglish dot com. To send us e-mail, write to special@voanews.com.

This VOA Special English Education Report was written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Gwen Outen.