On Education

Was doing some reading today, which discussed, among other things, the dominance of American/Western views on education over non-Western views on education. The book also discussed how non-Westerns don't necessarily want American/Western culture.
Although I still believe this to be true for the majority of people, my roommate Elena is a great counterpoint. Elena is Turkish, and at one point she told me that she doesn't understand why certain people in Turkey would dislike her American-influenced education.  (She went to a special school run by missionaries.)  I tried to explain to her the problems with neocolonialization, about how this kind of education culturally changes people, but she didn't really get it.
But maybe I'm hitting too close to home here. After all, Elena gave up a job to make herself come here to take classes so she can take a test to get into an American school. She doesn't want a European or even Canadian school. American. She wants Duke or NYU, well-known American schools. Questioning why the education she might recieve in Turkey is apparently not as desirable might hit a little too close to her heart, because, after all, she's buying into a system that privileges the opposite of what she mostly is: male, white, Christian, American, native-born, English-speaking, etc. If she questions why she is buying into this system, she might fall apart, because then why is she taking a six month class to pass a test she's already tried at three previous times? (Especially when she seems to have no natural ability for it or a particular desire to study.) 
I mostly find myself feeling sorry for her, because her view of America is so much different than mine.  There are so many things I feel like are fundamentally wrong here, and I keep thinking about how cultural hegemony is so dangerous, so sad, and she just eats this culture up without any thought as to what it is sublimanially telling her.