Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/feature-germanys-great-tuition-fees-u-turn/2011168.fullarticle

by superfx • 12 years ago

599 521 12 years ago

timeshighereducation.co.uk

Heliosmaster• 12 years ago

* University education? free

* Article to read about it? Pay for it.

This beautifully sums up the differences of education and news.

subhro2• 12 years ago

Very well said!

tptacek• 12 years ago

I have no idea what this comparison is supposed to mean. Where does journalism come from? The Department of Journalism?

tomp2• 12 years ago

In London, it largely comes from university students interning for free, or desperate young graduates working free internships "to gain experience".

VLM5• 12 years ago

In the UK, most (admittedly not all) real journalism comes from mandatory government taxes paid to the BBC.

You're looking at the private college equivalent of journalism here, not a free public uni.

mattjaynes• 12 years ago

Non-paywalled articles on this:

http://www.fchornet.com/news/all-german-universities-will-be...

http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/22027/1/g...

untog2• 12 years ago

I'm not sure that it sums up anything.

* Non-profit? free

* Profit-based company? Pay for it.

subhro2• 12 years ago

I wish this happened in US. The fee part, not the paid to read part :)

Igglyboo4• 12 years ago

I go to Oakland University in Michigan and we are the only University in the state(country?) to charge no fees. Tuition is still high but that is usually set by the state.

pmr_2• 12 years ago

There seems to be a confusion of words here. You seem to make a difference between tuition and tuition fees while the Wikipedia [1] article suggests that those terms mean the same in different English dialects.

As for Germany: almost all public Universities still take fees (usually around 100 Euros per semester, tax refundable). Tuition was a new thing and is what has been abandoned again.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuition_payments

valarauca1• 12 years ago

What is Oakland's Rough cost per semester? I live in the area and attend their security conferences from the outside looking in it seems like a decent school.

I already work as an software developer but a degree doesn't hurt my career options.

zura2• 12 years ago

Is price significant for public/state universities as well in US?

cdash2• 12 years ago

Yes, you end up paying 20k a year instead of 40k a year.

waterlesscloud• 12 years ago

It used to be pretty reasonable. When I attended Ga Tech (a state school) a couple decades ago, it was a few thousand a year to cover tuition, books, food, dorms. I can't remember tuition exactly, but I think it was in the neighborhood of $1500-1800 a year. (By comparison, MIT and Harvard were in the neighborhood of $16,000 a year at the time).

Then there was a period where Georgia had a lottery-funded scholarship that would cover your tuition fully at state schools if you kept a good GPA. I've heard in recent years that it's slipped due to declining lottery revenues, but I'm not sure.

Looking now, I see it's $9,000 a year just for tuition. An estimated $25,000 per year overall. Big increase, though it has been a long time.

That's a lot of money for in-state attendance. When I went it wasn't really a burden on most people to cover their kid's cost at Ga state schools. Now I think it really would be.

jeffasinger• 12 years ago

Yes, but Public Universities tend to be much cheaper than the other options.

The University I attended charges $6,000 per year in tuition, plus about another $1,000 in fees. Of course, you'd have to pay housing and food costs on top of that, which if you live on campus, ends up being about $10,000 a year, or less if you live off campus.

nilkn• 12 years ago

It depends heavily on where you go, but large and popular public schools can still be very expensive in the US. Here's an example of the cost breakdown at one such school:

http://admissions.missouri.edu/costs-and-aid/costs/index.php

Even more popular public schools like UCLA tend to be about $10k/year more:

http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/budget.htm

Just to give you an idea of the cost of, say, Harvard...

https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/how-aid-works/cost...

Do note that extremely wealthy private institutions like Harvard tend to be correspondingly generous with financial aid, so the number there is likely not representative of what you'd actually pay unless you came from a very rich family (as a fair number of Harvard students do).

dominotw2• 12 years ago

I finished my grad degree for under $10,000 with instate tuition at a state institution.

jessaustin• 12 years ago

When was this? What was the price for your undergrad?

Igglyboo4• 12 years ago

It's really crazy how the students reacted to this when the fees were introduced. They were very low compared to the US, less than 1000 euros for an entire year yet the students responded with mass protests and vandalism. On university also had it's master key(ring?) stolen and had to spend a lot of money to redo every lock.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielefeld_University#Protests_a...

tobinfricke• 12 years ago

The fees were really laughably small by U.S. standards, but fees, once implemented, seem to turn into a "slippery slope." So, as much as I like to mock my German students for complaining about having to pay €200 per semester, I think they were right to protest and "nip it in the bud".

For instance, the University of California is formally tuition-free for in-state residents (edit: is this correct?), but over the last several decades, the required "campus fees" have grown from zero to $12,972 per year (UC Berkeley). (Perhaps someone could find a nice graph of the required fees vs time from 1960 until today.)

cafard2• 12 years ago

After one of Mark Edmundson's op ed pleas for students and parents to consider college as non-vocational, I had a look at the University of Virginia's tuition and fees from the late 1970s to recently. Comparing this against the minimum wage, I found that a student could have earned the 1978-1979 tuition and fees working a bit over eight weeks at the minimum wage. For the 2011-2012 school year, it was more than 38 weeks.

rubbingalcohol• 12 years ago

You're correct. I went to a UC and they didn't have tuition, but there was an "education fee" of several thousand dollars.

levosmetalo2• 12 years ago

If you don't fight hard going from 0€ to 1000€, then you don't have any chance resisting a raise from 1000€ to 50000€ in the next decade. Just look at what happened to, once affordable, education in USA and do the opposite.

In Germany we like to get something in return for the tax we are paying to the state.

rkrzr• 12 years ago

Agree 100%, this is exactly what happened in the UK when they increased the upper limit for tuition fees.

switch007• 12 years ago

It happened in the UK. Fees started at £1,000 in 1998, rising to £3,000 in 2006 and then 2010 (?) fees rose to £9,000.

untog2• 12 years ago

They weren't protesting 1000 euros, they were protesting fees of any kind. The leap from "no fees" to "fees" the biggest of all.

yaeger2• 12 years ago

It still seemed petty when that "biggest gap of all" has a monetary value of about 20 bucks a week. For a higher education, mind you. I am willing to bet that the average student tends to spend more over the weekend in various nightclubs.

And that just made me wonder if they really value their weekly nightly outing more than their own education. I came to the conclusion that it just came down to something like "But the generation before us didn't have to pay. I don't want to pay also".

Also, if these fees were to be used exclusively for investing in infrastructure for higher learning, the students would profit from this. With fees like this is it of course easy that they get funneled into other funds but originally, these fees, small as they were, were supposed to be used to make upgrades in the universities. You'd think students would like to use better equipment. Because now, that they pay as little as their parents did, namely nothing, they probably will also get to use the exact same equipment their parents used.

rikacomet• 12 years ago

another version: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/15/german-universi...

I basically think this is a very big news. It effects a lot of people. Though I think this only applies (and should) to domestic students.

In our country (India) .. the Right to Education Act was a hot topic this year.. it still has to go a long way.. but it can learn from Germany's example of doing away with the fees altogether in Public Universities. Young people are the driving force behind the economy. But many fail to live up to their potential due to economic constraints.

1. Most Public Universities already run mostly upon Tax-Payers Money. So Burden is not that sudden, as one would think.

2. Expansions would be more scrutinized. We have to look at this in terms of Fixed and Variable/Recurring Cost.

3. Caution would be required on part of distributing the money corpus. Some colleges are in comfortable zone of the balance sheet, while some aren't. Those who are not, need to be looked after.

4. Students should still be charged for some "Extras" like Foreign Trips (optional in many colleges).

I would love to know the finer details of how German Govt is handling the economics around this decision. This could be a Epic Success or Epic Fail. The dice has been cast.

Kliment• 12 years ago

That's from three and a half years ago and refers to a different state.

pmr_2• 12 years ago

No dice has been cast. Things simply revert back to how they always have been. One important thing to know is that German universities are not handled by the federal government but on a state level (as all things educational) but there is a broader framework to keeps things aligned.

Only some states decided to demand tuition for their universities in 2006 (some later) and most quickly stopped again after a few years.

0xFFC5• 12 years ago

I cant understand this should part of your answer ? why should only applicable for domestic students?

sarciszewski• 12 years ago

But the newspapers haven't scrapped the paywall. (And setting my user agent to "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)" didn't dispel it :(

shmerl• 12 years ago

Impressive. I wish US would do the same.

pjmlp• 12 years ago

From an European point of view, the US university system is crazy.

In many European countries the value of state universities over private ones is very high regarded, that except for a few well renowned exceptions, private universities are seen as places where you buy a title, not earn one.

As they mostly get the students that weren't able to go through the national exams for the state universities.

zura2• 12 years ago

Yup, I always thought about top US universities as rich kids clubs.

malvim2• 12 years ago

This is EXACTLY the same situation as here in Brazil. Very few well renowned private universities, but the very best ones are the state universities.

VLM5• 12 years ago

"places where you buy a title"

We have public community college systems for this.

The "night school" programs have tolerable rep, although associate degrees are vocationally worthless in the economy usually there are well established credit transfer programs.

The day students are the ones who partied too hard to get into a "better" school or people with severe financial or personal issues. Or weirdos like me. I have an economically worthless associates degree in electronics from the very early 90s, but another way to look at it is I only paid about $4K cash out of pocket for 56 transfer credits which is about $70/credit. I work near a private regionally well regarded engineering school and their optimistic web page claims $47240/yr total today in 2014 (certainly real world would cost more) which works out to about $1475/credit.

(edited well this is embarrassing, I didn't correct for 2014 tuition at the community college where I got the A.S. in electronics in the early 90s. 2014 fall tuition is $125.85/credit, $4.50 mandatory minimum materials fee per class, $7.55 student activity mandatory fee, $6/semester mandatory accident liability policy fee. Shockingly they got rid of their technology fee and parking permit fee, nice. So about $140/credit in the fall of 2014, to compare apples to apples).

aianus2• 12 years ago

From an European point of view, the US university system is crazy.

From the US point of view the European system is crazy. Call me a selfish prick but I don't want to pay 50% taxes for the rest of my life subsidizing arts majors' parties because I chose to study something useful.

s_dev• 12 years ago

Whilst tuition fees in Ireland have not really risen - registration fees have gone from €200 to €3,000 over the 08-14'recession. In the UK fees have also risen. Finland and Denmark are free. I'm not that familiar with Southern or Eastern Europe.

I think free third level institutions are important but I'm not opposed to the "free now tax later after certain pay threshold" education systems like Australia.

Also [image] this: https://i.imgur.com/SXNtYyi.jpg taken from corrosponding reddit thread is also relevant. It illustrates tuition fees in Europe.

dasboth2• 12 years ago

Technically not all university education is free in Hungary. If you don't get the required grades to get in but your grades are above a certain threshold you can pay tuition fees and go on the course.

xyzzyz• 12 years ago

In the University of Warsaw, Poland, the only compulsory fees are $30 for registration, and $35 to get your diploma nicely bound. Well, come to think of it, you can even skip the binding.

icebraining• 12 years ago

A problem with that graphic is that it's not adjusted to the local purchasing power. 1000€/year is very different for someone who earns, say, 1440€/month (minimum wage in France) compared to someone who earns 505€/month (minimum wage here in Portugal).

_of• 12 years ago

Sweden is also free. Plus you get 1100 SEK/month in assistance from the government.

Tehnix• 12 years ago

You get a nice 5900 DKK/Month (7217 SEK or 1000$) here in Denmark :)

cmdkeen3• 12 years ago

There's a big difference between no tuition fees and "free" education. All this means is that the cost of education is passed on to all tax payers.

Now this can be justified, there is utility in having an educated workforce and society. However when everyone is paying there is a need to have a decision about how many people need that education to provide the benefits everyone gets. The UK is seeing these problems with 40% of school leavers going to university. There aren't enough jobs for graduates and we are way past the point of marginal returns in terms of social or cultural advancement.

Personally I much prefer the idea of fees and student loans. Not US style versions of either. In the UK they are effectively a graduate tax that you may pay off in time, they don't harm your credit rating and repayments are a percentage of your income about a relatively high amount (close to the average salary).

edent• 12 years ago

They don't harm your credit rating, but...

* You have to declare them when trying to get a mortgage (or any other loan) and so may reduce the amount you are leant.

* If you go bankrupt - the loan does not go away.

* Want to launch a funky startup? Now the graduates you want to work for you start demanding more money because a higher percentage now goes back to the Student Loan Company.

I fought hard against the introduction of fees when they were introduced in the UK. In 1998 they were set at £1k a year - we said it was a slippery slope and were dismissed as paranoid. Fees in the UK are now up to £9k per year.

cmdkeen3• 12 years ago

All of those things act like any other tax. That's all it is, a tax you may one day stop paying. A mortgage is dependent on your ability to repay, i.e. your net income, if the income tax rate went up then mortgage companies would also reduce the amount they would lend you.

The alternatives are either a graduate tax - which has all of the issues you mention, except you never stop paying it, so potentially pay far more than the cost of your education - or general taxation in which case the people who didn't go to university (generally less well off) are paying for your degree.

dasboth2• 12 years ago

I remember when I started university the cap was £3k per year in England I believe. That was one of the reasons I chose to go to Scotland - no tuition fees for EU students (the fact that students from the rest of Britain have to pay is another matter...). However, the tuition fees were/are still lower in Scotland, around £1700 a year.

hackerboos• 12 years ago

Now the graduates you want to work for you start demanding more money because a higher percentage now goes back to the Student Loan Company.

I'm sorry but that's the way it is if you want a skilled workforce.

If you're not paying it that way you're paying higher corporation taxes.

walshemj4• 12 years ago

why should a "funky" start-up not pay its fair share of training costs - a major structural problem in the UK going back decades.

Bring back the training levy which paid for proper vocational and associate professional training - none of the apprentice baristas fucking crap

iammyIP9• 12 years ago

"[...] way past the point of marginal returns in terms of social or cultural advancement [...]" - how do you measure that? We have just started.

More free education is always better, and as a bonus it forces society to automate mindnumbingly boring jobs when there is nobody left willing to do them. Imagine all People on Earth would have a university degree, good all-around education and culture would explode with the beauty of a supernova way beyond even our wildest imaginations. But no, some people need to be kept uneducated so they are willing to take shit jobs in the dust to serve the few chosen ones. All for the sake of "marginal returns"(?), which seems more important than humanity itself sometimes. This way of thinking must end. The sooner the better. Get educated.

cmdkeen3• 12 years ago

Firstly the large number of graduates in non graduate job belies this. It's a massive con that there are anything close to the same benefits accruing to everyone who gets a university education.

What should be happening more is people learning a trade. Germany's economic powerhouse status is not due to graduates nearly as much as skilled technical workers.

VLM5• 12 years ago

I don't live on the coasts and all the waitresses and bartenders and coffee baristas here have some kind of liberal arts degrees. My wife's hairdresser has a degree in English Lit IIRC. All that's exploding with the beauty of a supernova is their debts and higher ed administrator salaries. One of the waitresses at the local restaurant student taught at my son's school, and it doesn't make the service any better.

Intentionally vocational training and education are confused. "I'll take out $50K of loans to get vocational training at uni to get a credential so I can get a great job" then get stuck waitressing because 40 were graduated for 10 job openings is a net loss. "I'll get an education so I have interesting things to think about for the rest of my life" is a net win, although probably not worth $50K when you can get it just as good or better for free elsewhere, just without the credential.

danielweber3• 12 years ago

it forces society to automate mindnumbingly boring jobs when there is nobody left willing to do them

I missed the headline that the biggest problem with the economy right now is "too many jobs that are too boring to do."

jahewson2• 12 years ago

The current system of fees and loans just isn't working. We've had huge price inflation led by the universities because they know the government will back up the loan. Ironically, the extra money is often spent on new facilities (also built on credit), which are used to attract new students. It's not uncommon for a university to make a loss on undergraduate teaching. This needs to stop.

There's too much access to credit for both students and universities and too much of it is being wasted on competition and prestige in a market with few controls on quality. The transfer of wealth between students (and often their parents) and the universities is getting too large.

Any solution which relies on the student's access to credit is going to be exploited by the universities to gain access to more money. It's very similar to the housing market, few controls, too much cheap credit, and lots of emotional life decisions being made.

Abolishing fees would force the government to say no to the universities and keep the price under control. Students, no matter how wealthy, are too vulnerable a group to avoid exploitation under the current system.

gnarbarian• 12 years ago

Almost totally agree with you. WHICH degrees are also a factor. How many degrees in underwater basket weaving should the government be subsidizing?

I bet that making education 'free' will increase the unit cost per student per semester (total cost per year / number of students) and dramatically increase it per degree.

University costs in the US have been increasing rapidly at a rate far higher than inflation already. Some people argue that this is due to the high availability of student loans decreasing the pressure on universities to keep costs and tuition low.

This comes from the camp that believes that sticking kids with six digit debts right out of school is bad, unnecessary, AND that universities are needlessly wasteful. Eliminating the cost to the student entirely doesn't seem like the answer to me either due to decreased incentive for students to pass their classes and decreased pressure to drive down costs at the university. I believe 'free' university education will ultimately lead to even larger unit cost per student per semester and far greater cost per degree.

I tend to prefer solutions that leverage market forces. What do you think?

jiggy20118• 12 years ago

Has there been any extensive research done on relationship between university fees and social mobility?

On one hand it seems obvious that if you reduce costs of attending university you remove a barrier that would prevent economically disadvantaged people from attending.

But on the other hand, university students, especially those at the best universities disproportionately come from better economic backgrounds and this seems to be true everywhere. In this case it doesn't seem fair to tax people who are poor to pay for something that is mainly of benefit to the rich.

In the UK we have a student loan system where students do not have to pay back loans unless they earn over a threshold amount, so in theory there is nothing to prevent a poor person going to university regardless of how high the fees are.

Retric3• 12 years ago

The economy is not zero sum and educated people on average make more. So, the net cost over time for subsidizing education is probably a small fraction of the sticker price. Or possibly it ends up paying for it's self.

jiggy20118• 12 years ago

But if they do make more, does it not make sense for the university grad to pay that cost after they have graduated?

watwut2• 12 years ago

"university students especially those at the best universities disproportionately come from better economic backgrounds and this seems to be true everywhere. In this case it doesn't seem fair to tax people who are poor to pay for something that is mainly of benefit to the rich."

That is the argument used to introduce the fees. Once they are introduced, poor person chance to get into university gets even lower. Expensive University basically constitutes huge advantage for kids of the rich, it makes competition for well paid jobs lower.

Moreover, rich in Germany pay more in taxes, so they really pay more.

jiggy20118• 12 years ago

This is the core of my question. Is there evidence that lowering fees does increase participation in university from poorer people and does this still hold true if the fee paying can be deferred?

More to the point, does it increase participation of poor people in the best universities and the best (as reflected in higher salaries) degree programmes?

nhaehnle• 12 years ago

Social mobility in Germany is very low, doing consistently worse than e.g. the Scandinavian countries (I remember seeing sources claim that it is even worse than the US, but there seems to be no agreement on that).

However, as far as education is concerned, it would be wrong to blame universities. The German school system is very stratified, "locking in" a child's destiny at a young age. Via parents who understand this and fight tooth and nail to get their child into the highest tier of the school system, it leads to high correlation between parents' and children's academic achievements.

yodsanklai• 12 years ago

Social mobility is very low in France as well and education is pretty much free.

Kurtz794• 12 years ago

Very low compared to what ?

I would say that is lower compared to Scandinavian countries but generally high.

From Wikipedia:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Soc...

this_user• 12 years ago

Social mobility is low that is a well-documented fact, but I disagree with blaming the educational system for that. There are always paths to work your way up in the system even if you were not always in the highest tier. I personally know several people who did it that way. There are more than enough high-profile examples e.g. former Chancellor Schröder who started with a retail apprenticeship, then passed his Abitur, got his law degree, then became Prime Minister of Lower Saxony and eventually Chancellor.

My point is that there is always a way to advance if you have the brains and the drive to do it. In addition to that you can easily receive financial support from the German state if your family is unable to pay for your desired education. I don't think the system can do much more as it already offers all the opportunities you could hope for.

So this then leads to the question of why social mobility is still low despite all of this. Possibly it has more to do with the people's general mindset. Parents with academic degrees are likely going to push their children in the same direction. Parents without a degree, on the other hand, may very well tell their children that an apprenticeship has served them just fine and that there is no need to get an academic degree. This, I think, is the big difference. In the US there is this idea of advancing and making more of yourself (even if that has become more difficult, but that's not the point here) while German society is much more static. I think this is the real reason for low social mobility that people are simply not that driven to chance their circumstances and not even free education and financial support can change that.

lispm• 12 years ago

There are a lot of paths to Universities.

What the German education system recognizes is this: not everyone needs to go to university. There are lots of other satisfying career paths.

digikata• 12 years ago

Social mobility may be low, but is the range of social/income disparity as high as in the US?

walshemj4• 12 years ago

And until recently get sorted onto the vocational track in Germany and you were radically limited on where your career could take you.

brianmcc3• 12 years ago

In some parts of the UK, you mean :-)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-23279868

awfycooper• 12 years ago

This is why it's a god send if you have a Scottish relative of some sort when you grow up poor in England. A couple of friends of mine used this exact loophole in order to further their education when they had to leave high school.

sambeau2• 12 years ago

This isn't such a simple story.

The current Scottish Government has been widely criticised by opponents for using cuts in the College budgets to fund their free tuition policy for Universities.

As colleges and universities are, sadly, still stratified by class in the UK this could have a detrimental on effect for social mobility in Scotland.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-2387...

samuli• 12 years ago

IIRC Finland has never had university tuition fees and it is the 3rd most equal country in the world. http://www.goodcountry.org/country/FIN

Finnish students get allowance from the government for the duration of their studies (max ~60 months) and get government backed cheap loans which they start paying back after their studies.

My own experience is that there are people from very varying backgrounds in the Finnish universities.

eqdw2• 12 years ago

Finnish students get allowance from the government for the duration of their studies (max ~60 months) and get government backed cheap loans which they start paying back after their studies.

Thought experiment: American students also get government backed cheap loans. Further, since these government-backed cheap loans are often used to cover cost of living as well as tuition, they are a de-facto allowance from the government (albeit one you need to pay back after you are graduated). And yet the american education system seems to have a bunch of dysfunctions that the Finnish one does not.

There has to be other differences that cause this, it can't be the presence of cheap loans. The conventional wisdom in America is that cheap loans incentivize universities to raise tuition, because they know the money is still coming in. Why does this effect not take place in Finland?

Shivetya2• 12 years ago

I am more concerned with good seats going to students who will never complete their degree, or the degree is not needed in the market and you end up with hobby and not a job.

While the idea of removing costs sounds good there are just so many negatives. Means testing should still be done, raise the bar so that the truly well off are the only ones paying and not the lower income levels. The second "means" testing would be, is their object an effective degree. I see no reason to pay for someone's hobby, paying for a degree to benefit society is another.

which redirects my thinking too, its free if your going to be a teacher, public defender, or similar, provided you complete the course and server for a set number of years, no less than ten.

VLM5• 12 years ago

"or the degree is not needed in the market and you end up with hobby and not a job."

There are more destructive forms of welfare than academic credentialism. Its an interesting idea to think about... if you can't get a job, go to school for free collecting degrees and certifications until you get a job.

I've checked the numbers and in terms of accounting overhead and criminal justice system overhead it is somewhat cheaper, even with hyperinflated .edu costs, to send a kid to school than to jail. Even if only 1 in 3 kids gets caught and enters the criminal justice system (we do approach that ratio with some minorities) the numbers still work out that its cheaper to send all 3 of them to a community college than sending just 1 to prison.

thro12374• 12 years ago

I can only provide anecdotal evidence. I come from a poor family and studied in India in a government university by paying $20/year. The cost of providing that education was estimated at $1000/year and private universities used to charge as much. If the government had not provided that subsidy, I would not have taken a loan to the tune of $1000/year because that would have been too risky. I would have opted for the less risky option of herding cows.

Fast forward 15 years, I worked in a research lab and in 2009 I paid more than $12000 in income tax alone. I also created more employment by spending the money I earned. The government got a great return on its investment and it can now fund the education of more people -- a virtuous cycle.

Almost half my class was in a similar situation and most of them are doing good.

xixixao• 12 years ago

It's not so much anecdotal as circumstantial. If everyone was taking the loan, you probably would too. It is the same in England, were students took loans for 3,5k pounds a year and now even 9k a year.

Now I am not saying that the British system is the ideal (pros and cons) but I can certainly provide some more anecdotal evidence of many people who study for free (in the Czech Republic) and are basically wasting the system resources (both in terms of taking up spaces in classes and having the tax status of a student). But possibly even better argument for tuition is the level of funding for universities. It certainly seems greater in tuition based systems (I know the US and UK one) vs government sponsored one (like the Czech one).

MarkMc2• 12 years ago

I would not have taken a loan to the tune of $1000/year because that would have been too risky. I would have opted for the less risky option of herding cows.

What if the loan repayments were a percentage of your salary, rather than a fixed rate? I wonder why these types of loans aren't offered...

h43k3r• 12 years ago

I agree with you.Today, IITs (best engineering universities in india) for example have fees no more than $1000 per semester. Many of my classmates who are from relatively poor background are able to study without worrying about loans and and many of them are doing very well in their careers.

giveuptheghost• 12 years ago

Most of the evidence[1] I've seen tends to suggest that whether or not you'll attend university is determined at a very young age. If credit and scholarships are available, then the fees themselves are unlikely to be a deterrent, hence no fees is a subsidy on the rich. This strand of research doesn't really talk about the differences in performance once admitted, though (piling up debt might be extra motivation to do well).

What I'd like to read more about is research on progressive fee systems (e.g. based on family income) and the consequences on admissions and subsequent performance.

[1] e.g. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-0297.00075/a...

tokenadult2• 12 years ago

Has there been any extensive research done on relationship between university fees and social mobility?

Thank you for asking for data to inform our discussion here. Yes. There are a number of scholars of the economics of education who work full-time researching this issue. You are correct that university admission generally takes in young people from more prosperous families all over the world--because young people from such families don't have to enter the labor force immediately after completing compulsory schooling to support themselves or to support other family members.

The best evidence from international studies suggests the policy announced by Germany is not the best policy for ensuring access to higher education. An Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) international study reports, "Student financial support systems that offer loans with income-contingent repayment to all students combined with means-tested grants can be an effective way to promote access and equity while sharing the costs of higher education between the state and students."[1] Reading this study will provide more background information.

My recollection of the international research studies I have read is that the best mix of quality of higher education and access to higher education by students of all economic backgrounds is to have a mixed system (nonsystem) of higher education in a country, with some public universities with very heavy tax subsidies so that list price is low (but admission is hard to gain), some private universities that accept students with more money (or more willingness to take out loans on the idea that investing in higher education has return on investment), and some privately funded scholarships specific to students rather than specific to what institutions the students enroll in. Examples of countries with such nonsystems that produce a lot of access to higher education of good quality for a lot of students include the United States (where black people, who are often poor, attend college at a higher rate than French people in France do, as I recall reading), and more recently Japan (which now also has such a mixed nonsystem, parallel to its national universities), and Taiwan. I have also read the Norway and other Nordic countries do well in providing a lot of access to reasonably good higher education, with perhaps a different mix of providers.

A 2013 article from the Times Higher Education Supplement[2] has an interesting discussion of international trends in financing higher education.

[1] http://www.oecd.org/education/skills-beyond-school/49729932....

[2] http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/a-different-w...

mrxd• 12 years ago

The best evidence from international studies suggests the policy announced by Germany is not the best policy for ensuring access to higher education.

That's not true. The report you linked to is trying to "strike the right balance between keeping student charges reasonable and finding sufficient funding for their higher education systems." The goal is to simply reduce government spending on education by transferring costs to individuals.

rbehrends6• 12 years ago

It is worth emphasizing that it's not just accessibility that Germany is interested in. While access to higher education IS an article of faith for the social democrats, there are additional factors in play here.

First, the German economy is dependent on a skilled labor force. As a result, Germany subsidizes tertiary education across the board, not just college. That's not only to keep college accessible for the poor, but to encourage young people to get a solid, credentialed education.

Second, the usual expectation in Germany is that you'll finish university with a graduate degree. In fact, until recently (per the Bologna Process) there weren't even undergraduate degrees in Germany (as they provided less depth than a graduate degree and less practical experience compared to vocational training). The industry is generally interested in an MS over a BS, and having to pay for your tuition may force students to take a break after their Bachelor's degree to earn some money.

Third, there's the German attitude towards personal debt and loans (which is that they don't particularly like either). I think the German banking system isn't really set up do handle big personal loans outside of mortgages and car loans.

bane8• 12 years ago

American here, after age 10, I grew up fairly poor and very rural. Within a half hour drive (on highways) from the home I grew up in, all the jobs were either in farming/agriculture, similar industrial (quarries or steel factory), grocery stores or gas stations.

The notion of going to college was virtually inconceivable to me and I was pretty sure I'd end up out in a field or a factory someplace. For a while I did odd manual labor jobs, sanding decks, cleaning gutters, digging drainage trenches, that sort of thing. My parents were simply unable to pay for any amount of college for me and I was barely making enough money to cover the gas and meals to get to and from and work at the various job sites. Coming out of that kind of environment, with no hope of ever getting to college, I didn't even bother taking the SATs in high school and barely graduated at all, nobody hiring farm work cares about your GPA.

Through a friend I managed to land a low-end tech job, but it provided me with just enough to pay for community college with lots of financial aid (I couldn't take loans because I wasn't sure if I could even pay them back).

Eventually, just because I was currently in college in a desirable field, I landed a paid internship that paid 3x what I was then currently making. I graduated, transferred to the local state school, converted the internship into a part-time job that paid even more.

At the local state school, I didn't make enough to pay for college and live, so I qualified for a number of grants which provided 100% of my tuition (I still had to pay for books and various other fees). Today the grants are about the same amount of money, but the state school fees back then were about 1/3 less than they are today thanks to generous subsidies, so I definitely benefited from that subsidy program. I couldn't have gone to my final two years of my undergrad in today's environment.

Because I was nearing the end of my undergrad, I was able to land another, higher paying internship with a performance-based conversion to full-time employment. When I graduated college, I converted to full-time and immediately doubled my income and started on a long and interesting career path.

Eventually I went back to grad school and got a Masters, which has again accelerated my career development.

So did I experience social mobility from cheap education fees? Absolutely. I think the most important thing is that had I not gone to college and ended up in dead-end farm work, the amount of taxes I would have payed back into the state would have been a tiny tiny fraction of what I've paid back since then. I've easily bought back the subsidies and grants used for my education several times over just in the tax difference that I've paid personally, and the additional economic benefits I'm able to provide working in my field far outstrip even that. For example, I've been able to hire people from out of state and out of the country and bring them into my state where they're now paying taxes back into the system.

It seems like such a virtuous cycle that I can't imagine why at least the levels of subsidies that I enjoyed haven't been maintained. It seems like such an obvious investment.

acmecorps• 12 years ago

Wow, congrats on your hard earned life! :)

rthomas64• 12 years ago

What does your family think about all this?

beachstartup• 12 years ago

pardon me for asking, just curious - what year did you graduate?

vlunkr• 12 years ago

You will also be paying for students who are getting degrees that end up making them no money. When I was in school there were so many people getting fine art degrees focusing on ceramics, oil painting, etc. who are now working at grocery stores or getting some sort of education in new field. Their debts are now on everyone else.

ajmurmann5• 12 years ago

Tuition in Germany was limited to 300 Euro/ semester anyways. That never really paid for the education fully.

usrusr3• 12 years ago

In this case it doesn't seem fair to tax people who are poor to pay for something that is mainly of benefit to the rich.

Even the uneducated tend to be better off in a country with a high education average than in a country where everybody is on their level. I'd rather be an illiterate in the Sweden, Switzerland or the USA (to take a few samples from all over the spectrum between welfare and market) than in any of the many countries that never succeeded in building a true culture of education.

You may question the causality of this (does education cause wealth or does wealth cause education?) but i doubt that it would even be possible to bootstrap high education with a market-only approach even under the most beneficial circumstances otherwise. I'm no expert in the history of American education institutions, but i'd be surprised if they were not founded with intentions more along the lines of the greater good of the colony or whatever local scope the founders were thinking of, than along the lines of offering even better opportunities for the rich. At the time, most of the truly rich were probably quite happy sending their offspring back to England anyway.

pbhjpbhj• 12 years ago

In the UK we have a student loan system where students do not have to pay back loans unless they earn over a threshold amount, so in theory there is nothing to prevent a poor person going to university regardless of how high the fees are. //

You still need to live. The maximum loans don't appear to take in to account the cost of rent and food/transportation. When+where I went to Uni there were no fees and there was a loan system but the loan didn't cover living expenses at all, IIRC it didn't even cover my rent (which was as high at the time as London rents; London students had a higher loan rate however to accommodate the high rent). Without relatively well off parents I couldn't have attended the high-class institution that I did.

The usual answer is to have a part time job - but with lectures starting at 9am every day, finishing labs by about 6pm some days and evenings spent at the library the only time for a job was weekends, which would mean no sport and/or no social life.

Anyway, I digress, the UK model seems only really good in theory. Many, many people appear to be at "university" only to avoid work or having been convinced that they "need a Uni education to function as part of society" by political parties who seemingly only wanted to reduce the unemployment figures. Perhaps that's a little too cynical but I think there's much truth in it too.

In this case it doesn't seem fair to tax people who are poor to pay for something that is mainly of benefit to the rich. //

Educated workers benefit society. They often pay larger tax bills but they also fill roles in fields like medicine, education, engineering, and such that serve society. We need educated people to work and bolster our economy if we want to live in the way we've become accustomed to. We don't have to pay but we'd be foolish IMO not to. Like begrudging doctors their high pay when we as a society en masse appear not to blink at paying footballers, bankers, pop-stars and such many order of magnitude more [I know the economics aren't so simple]. The UK is looking to immigration to solve the crisis of lack of skilled workers and at the same time placing financial blocks in front of those that might be able to be home-grown to fill those positions in the future. Maybe that's not a bad thing but it seems like one, not least because of the skills drain we place on other countries.

thejdude14• 12 years ago

Not research, but in Sociology 101 I picked up that the US have a traditionally high upward social mobility and even poor kids can go to college (if only through student credit) and have a good career afterwards. I've heard that recent financial crises, and the bad job market prospects of liberal arts graduates have changed this somewhat.

In Germany, tuition is almost non-existent (usually some fees of maybe 150€/semester, although a few years back there was a phase of actual student fees of - still laughable - 500€/semester), and if your parents don't make much money, or if you have many siblings, you can even get a half-credit/half-scholarship from the government (AFAIK even without interest, called "Bafög"), so especially for poor kids it's as easy as nowhere else in the world to go study. In smaller towns you can also get a student dorm room for under 200€, and overall living (esp. groceries) in Germany is quite cheap.

Yet Germany has a very low number of working-class students, for whatever reasons. Usually I think it's the parents' influence (but don't ask me why).

We also now have student credit now, in case you don't qualify for Bafög money, but unlike consumer credit which has become quite common, student credit doesn't seem to find many friends. People don't want to go borrow 10-30k for a college degree, but they'll happily finance their 25k cars or their 300k+ condos/houses.

dubbel2• 12 years ago

Yet Germany has a very low number of working-class students, for whatever reasons. Usually I think it's the parents' influence (but don't ask me why).

I think there are two reasons:

1. Three-tiered school system: German children are separated after the fourth grade and go to three different schools (Hauptschule, Realschule, Gymnasium) and only if Gymnasium graduates can go to universities. In theory this should happen depending on their academic abilities, but in practice it depends on the ability of your parents to support you in school and their interest in your academic career, too. Parents who went to the Hauptschule may think that this is the best way for their child, too.

2. For many jobs you don't need a degree or better you cannot even get a college degree. Nurses, craftsmen and many more professions are trained in vocational schools (which are counted as secondary education in OECD studies). While a US nurse attends a college (as far as I know) and therefore is counted as tertiary educated.

tobltobs• 12 years ago

"In this case it doesn't seem fair to tax people who are poor to pay for something that is mainly of benefit to the rich." The idea is that people with better eductation will earn more and pay more taxes and this way they will give back the support the did get. Of course this does not work if rich people do pay less taxes than the poor. But we are not there yet in europe.

malvim2• 12 years ago

The federal and state universities here in Brazil have always been free. In fact, most people here use the terms "public" as a synonym for "free of charge", when talking about education. I think this is great, but it is not "education for everyone" as sometimes it's touted to be.

The problem we have is not about paying for college education, but in being able to pass the entry exams. Even though the public higher-education institutions are free of any tuition fees, an enormous part of their students is still composed of upper-middle-class kids, whose parents could afford the high-priced private middle and high schools.

It's great we have free public schools, but the inclusion they should provide is still a long ways of becoming true.

taejo3• 12 years ago

I'm a student at a German university, and I don't pay tuition fees, but I do pay about 400€ a year in "semester fees", of which the two largest components are "student services" and a compulsory season ticket for regional transport; student union membership and some kind of insurance contribution are also included.

vapourismo• 12 years ago

400€ per year or per semester? Where? I am at the Institute of Technology in Berlin and I payed 290.37€ this semester, which includes 179.40€ for public transport.

andreasklinger• 12 years ago

so you paid 80€ more ?

taejo3• 12 years ago

Per year.

garagemc2• 12 years ago

Hey quick question - are comp sci courses in Germany taught in English throughout?

2ion3• 12 years ago

No, it depends on the university. The predominant language of teaching in undergraduate courses in Germany is still German. However, the amount of course offerings in English language is increasing. The most common model now should be that a few classes each semester are being offered in English, which are often being taught by visiting professors or guest lecturers.

Ao7bei3s• 12 years ago

No.

Many are, especially higher level courses (ie, above the Bachelor level), but not nearly all of them. Some lecturers try to hold their lectures in English even though they speak it very poorly.

Pretty much all lecturers will happily take English questions and answer them in English. And all German comp sci students speak English.

For many courses which are held in German the materials are still in (some kind of) English. You can usually get by very, very well by skipping the classes entirely and learning from the provided materials only. In fact, that's what a large number of German students are doing too.

Quanttek2• 12 years ago

As the other repliers already said, the amount of English classes is limited, though you should be able to get your Bachelor without having to take German courses. That, of course, will be a bit harder to find the right lectures etc

dubbel2• 12 years ago

There is an increasing number of German universities which offer Master programs taught in English.

Here is a list of the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (German Academic Exchange Service):

https://www.daad.de/deutschland/studienangebote/internationa...

eqdw2• 12 years ago

of which the two largest components are "student services"

I also had to pay for student services at my (Canadian) university, for things like meal plans, supplemental health/dental/vision insurance, subsudized bus fare, etc. It cost about $300 a year, if I recall correctly. However, I was given the option of opting out. Are you not also given that option?

sauere2• 12 years ago

The fees (student union and transport subsidies) that he mentioned are mandatory. There is no opting out.

tehabe2• 12 years ago

Those fees have no drop out, if the semester ticket had a drop out I guess nobody really wants to do that. You get to use all public transport of the region for a very low price. (Only exemption is, when a student goes abroad and can't use it anyway it the student can be exempt, usually there is also the possibility for poor students that the ticket is paid by the student body. At least we had the possibility to do that)

The other part is the Studentenwerk (Student's Works) which runs cafeterias, housing and other services which you can use for a low price or even free.

The third part is for the student body. In most states in Germany the student body is an legal public body. It is used by the student parliament den the student committee (AStA) to fund services and other stuff which is needed to represent students and their needs. Usually the semester ticket is not made between the university and the transportation company but between the student body and the company, therefore the AStA is negotiating the contract about it. (depends on the university).

We also had three permanent employees, which helped a lot.

Insurances of any kind is not included.

Full disclosure, I used to be the chair of a student committee of the student body of an German university.

akgerber• 12 years ago

American students generally pay similar fees on top of their tuition. Except they're usually higher.

GolfyMcG3• 12 years ago

Why has no one brought up how the top German university is "ranked" 55th on this list:

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-ranki...

I'm not saying this list is definitive or that the US tuition prices are reasonable, but it stands to reason that the best of the best of anything is going to be exponentially more expensive than it's next closest competitors.

Glan1984• 12 years ago

Because that list was made by Brits. I bet a German made list would look different ;). Anyone who values lists like this is a fool. Just saying.

jbangert• 12 years ago

Without going into the metrics that these rankings use and their flaws, the German university system unfortunately focuses less on "elite" universitities, instead trying to create a good average experience, so most of the universities are actually fairly on-par with each other in terms of funding, and therefore also research output, teaching, etc. That being said, my experience with high-prestige american universities has been that the expense has very little to do, and feeds very little into, the quality of the education. US universities are expensive because they have massive bureaucratic overhead and are funded through a peculiar model (Government gives money to people, which give money to universities).

Also, Germany used to have no tuition until the mid-2000s or so, and only some places introduced it, and it was really, really low.

tegeek• 12 years ago

I think you are right. Sweden is more or less has the same model as German when it comes to higher education. There are no particular "elite" universities & most of the universities are more or less on the same level when it comes to funding, research output, teaching etc.

Even as an International student back in 2008, I paid 0$ in tuition fees & used to pay 30$ as student union fee per study term/semester and have best study experience I can imagine.

2ion3• 12 years ago

The aversion towards the promotion of a few selected university is also apparent in the fact that the only wide-scale national program for financing elite structures, the "excellence initiative", is subject to quite a bit of criticism (recent piece in the Spiegel: http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/exzellenzinitiative...).

troebr• 12 years ago

University rankings are full of manure if you will pardon my French.

The model they use favors big general universities with a strong research department. Also how do you evaluate the learning environment? Number of flat screen tvs per student? Number of millions spent on sports facilities?

Teaching: the learning environment (worth 30 per cent of the overall ranking score) Research: volume, income and reputation (worth 30 per cent) Citations: research influence (worth 30 per cent) Industry income: innovation (worth 2.5 per cent) International outlook: staff, students and research (worth 7.5 per cent).

peteretep2• 12 years ago

Sure, but German universities are also surprisingly mediocre considering how good the Germans are at everything else.

VLM5• 12 years ago

Per

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-ranki...

60% of the ranking is strictly research related, which is meaningless to undergrads although very important to grad students and above, and 10% is admitted to be subjective fluff. Perhaps important fluff, perhaps not, but definitely subjective fluff. Only 30% of the ranking score relates to teaching.

So 60% to 70% of the score is irrelevant to undergrads, and the difference between 1st place and 55th place is a mere thirty percent or so. My engineering "sig figs" spidey sense is tingling that the "ranking" is meaningless.

Kesty• 12 years ago

Not really.

14 place ETHZ (Switzerland) https://www.ethz.ch/en/studies/financial/tuition-fees.html $600 at semester = $1,200 (1 school year)

15 place John Hopkins(USA) http://www.collegecalc.org/colleges/maryland/johns-hopkins-u... $45,470 (1 school year)

Obviously it's US against Switzerland, it's completely different and very hard to compare. But bigger fees doesn't really means better university.

vasilipupkin2• 12 years ago

Yes, but there are plenty of scholarhips and need based funds at John Hopkins. So this way a rich student has no problem paying either through loans or cash, but a poor student will be subsidized to a large extent. Also, if you want to major in something that is not in high demand then great, do it but why should everyone else subsidize your choices?

GolfyMcG3• 12 years ago

It's funny you mention Johns Hopkins because that's where I graduated from. I won't pretend it's cheap but we certainly didn't pay $45,000/yr. As some others have pointed out, there are fairly generous aid packages at a lot of these universities. I do still have student loans but they are entirely manageable.

3pt141592• 12 years ago

That link is laughably bad, at least for Canadian universities.

U of Toronto at #20 world wide? Impossible. People are not lining up to get into Toronto. I was offered a full scholarship at my first choice at Toronto, and didn't even get my first choice at Waterloo.

Waterloo behind 7 or 8 other Canadian universities? Also impossible.

berelig• 12 years ago

These rankings rely so heavily on research and reputation for scoring that you shouldn't look at it as an indicator of a university's academic quality.

That would be the reason U of T is ranked so highly; they are even amongst competitive Ivy League schools!

When I was applying for university (2007/08) U of T was handing out acceptance letters to everyone. Instead of rejecting you they would offer a place at a "lesser" campus (Mississauga or Scarborough) or defer you to a less competitive but related program. They are the largest university system in the nation with lots of spaces to fill so the scenario you described (getting accepted by the "#1 ranked school in Canada" and rejected by another") actually happens quite a lot.

As for Waterloo, they're hardly a well rounded school. Yes, their engineering and computer science departments are internationally renown, but otherwise they are 2nd tier.

Whatever the metric for rankings, I still think U of T is the best school in Canada. Just maybe not top 20 in the world.

sauere2• 12 years ago

Mediocre performance is what you get with a system like the one that is in place in Germany.

Let me throw in two numbers first:

- over the last 15 years the total number of students has increased by ~48% (while the total population has shrunk by 3%)

- the number of available majors has tripled within the last 7 years (with the large part of the new majors being in non-science fields)

People have not gotten smarter over the last 15 years, but the majors are getting less less challenging and more specialized. The universities focus on pushing as many people threw the system as possible. There is no place, time or money for excellence. They produce what the german industry wants, not more and not less. This can be good or bad, depending on what you want.

peterfirefly• 12 years ago

This does not strike me as a particularly German development...

aschreyer• 12 years ago

In Germany the cutting edge research is usually done by specific research organisations that do no or only very little teaching such as the Max Planck Institutes, Helmholtz Association, Fraunhofer, etc. Of course, as a student you do not really benefit from that at the undergraduate level - those world-class researchers are usually too busy to teach and leave it to their assistants.

wirrbel• 12 years ago

however they do teach and you will attend their lectures as a grad student!

rbehrends6• 12 years ago

That is actually a bit more complicated.

(1) Germany traditionally hasn't done "elite universities". Even in the early 20th century (i.e. until about 1933), when Germany was a Nobel Prize factory, it was often individual departments that stood out (such as mathematics in Goettingen), not universities in their entirety. There's currently an attempt to change that (Exzellenzinitiative), but we'll see how that goes.

(2) Until a while ago, it was difficult to become a full professor at a German university unless you were German (because you basically became a civil servant, part of the requirements for which was citizenship); German also wasn't the lingua franca of science anymore after WW II, which made it difficult for German universities to attract foreign academic talent.

(3) In lieu of elite universities, Germany these days has hundreds of research centers (such as the Max Planck Institutes), which do attract the cream of the crop.

(4) High college rankings do not actually seem to translate into better adult education [1]. Part of that is, of course, that American students enter college with 1-2 years less education than other developed countries [2], and that's really a problem of secondary education. But on the other hand, a Bachelor's degree in many European countries takes only three years instead of four (in part for that reason), so that should compensate.

In this context, it's worth noting that the methodology that the THE uses for calculating the teaching score is imperfect, to say the least. It comprises the following factors [3]: (1) a survey of the perceived prestige of the institution, (2) staff-to-student ratio, (3) doctorate-to-bachelor ratio, (4) institutional income compared to staff numbers.

While I do think that the German university system could be improved upon (no secret, pretty much all German professors I know think the same), this is an apple-to-oranges comparison: especially at the undergraduate level, there are fundamental structural differences in the two college systems that renders most of these factors meaningless as a basis for comparison.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/upshot/americans-think-we-...

[2] http://www.vox.com/2014/7/5/5868791/does-america-have-good-c...

[3] http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-ranki...

luch2• 12 years ago

As a French I'm always find those rankings entertaining : for exemple the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) is ranked 65 with a research score 37.1 .

The ENS has outputted 11 Fields winning mathematicians (20% of the world's laureates) and 10 Nobel prizes. In comparison, Cornell Uni. (19th) count 13 alumni which has won the Nobel.

DasIch6• 12 years ago

Research as well as number of graduates with noteworthy awards is a rather questionable metric, for someone chosing a university right now. The number of awards is particularly problematic due to the timeframes involved not to mention the fact, that you are probably going to study something different and thereby at a different faculty than those successful graduates.

jre• 12 years ago

Germany has things like the Max Planck Society[1] (with 32 Nobel Prized), but it's not directly affiliated with a University, so it doesn't count in the rankings. It seems to me those rankings favor very large institution; are the score even normalized by number of students/faculty ?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck_Society

GolfyMcG3• 12 years ago

To play devil's advocate, I'm not necessarily saying that the best education stems from these schools but it's certainly other things that you're getting value from. This other HN article seemed relevant:

http://andrewgelman.com/2014/09/30/23581/

xtc• 12 years ago

All German universities free of charge... [paywall]

raverbashing11• 12 years ago

I find the "American model" and the "European model" dichotomy very interesting.

American model: individually centered, "pay for what you want", development is driven by small companies and individual decisions (most of the time). "Works for me"

European model: centered on the community, social support, development by committee/government/consensus. Slow but directed improvements

Germany could not have produced Facebook. But they have a great train network. France puts satellites on orbit and does the TGV.

In the US you have millionaires came out of "nothing" (of course, from nice universities, nice contacts, etc), people jumping at opportunities, while in Europe this would take 2 meetings, 3 viability studies and 4 months.

So, while I'm more towards in favour of the European model someone has to ask themselves what are they missing. Yes, they have a very nice and educated workforce that will be ready to work and be very productive at a big company where they will work hard, sure, but will come out with the least amount of new ideas (that's not their job), and will do the things most likely to be accepted by the majority.

ionised• 12 years ago

The way you describe it makes the EU system sound preferable.

bharath28• 12 years ago

This. And that somehow a viable combination of the two approaches can't be built.

spydum• 12 years ago

that is one of the great part of being human: diversity of thought. it's a shame most people are convinced that they are "right", and assume there can only be one right model. Leads to people trying to establish these monocultures, which usually fail (over time).

melling3• 12 years ago

Building a high-speed rail network has nothing to do with our "model". It's 50 year old technology with commercial use before man first set foot on the moon.

There are a dozen countries with it. Spain, for example, has a few thousand miles.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-speed_rail_lines

acadien4• 12 years ago

That's a pretty sweeping statement. Education impacts all things, voting, social norms, behavior, social sentiment... all of which impact how politicians act. In addition the politicians themselves go through the public education system.

raverbashing11• 12 years ago

I'm not talking about the technology, I'm talking about the implementation.

Doing this requires a lot of collective work: investment, property acquisition or licensing, railway building, etc

This requires collective vision and goals

psychometry2• 12 years ago

Why do those philosophies have to be mutually exclusive? Can't you apply principles of social welfare to the public sector while allowing entrepreneurship in the private sector?

raverbashing11• 12 years ago

They don't have to be. But it's complicated.

And sure, entrepreneurship is allowed, but then you'll have to convince your family of why are you not getting a nice job as a government clerk or something.

ahomescu14• 12 years ago

Why do those philosophies have to be mutually exclusive? Can't you apply principles of social welfare to the public sector while allowing entrepreneurship in the private sector?

Because they compete for capital. The former requires high taxes, which leave a lot less private capital for investment and entrepreneurship. For example, imagine if the government had taxed away 90% of Elon Musk's fortune.

pessimizer• 12 years ago

Germany could have produced facebook.

edit: maybe better framed as a question - why do you think that Germany could not have produced facebook?

smm20005• 12 years ago

Germany has not so far produced a single website or app that is hugely popular internationally. It does not mean it could not - it certainly have educated population to do it but the fact is it has not.

raverbashing11• 12 years ago

Simple answer: because they think it's silly (or think it's too much of a privacy violation)

Germans are "very serious" even when they're having fun.

bratsche• 12 years ago

Even if what you're saying is true (which I'm a little skeptical of), what provides more value to people? Facebook or free education?

penprog2• 12 years ago

At first glance this question seems easy to answer but on a second thought I could see how someone could argue that Facebook provides more value.

flexie2• 12 years ago

If Germany couldn't have produced Facebook it's only because of the language. User content on facebook is mainly a written language thing, and it would have been hard spreading a website with mostly German content to English since so few Americans and brits speak German. On the other hand, most young Europeans speak English so Facebook had little trouble spreading from American universities to Europeans.

Skype started in Europe (Swedish/Danish co-founders, Estonian devs, offices in London, company in Luxembourg). No "committe/government/consensus" there.

Also, Apple and Google are examples of American companies that started with public funding.

Finally, many European countries rank higher than the US when it comes to social mobility. Don't most European know several millionaires who "came out of nothing" (or at least from a quiet European middle class background)? I think so.

raverbashing11• 12 years ago

If Germany couldn't have produced Facebook it's only because of the language

No. Most Germans don't even care for FB (or twitter). Or they use it with a limited purpose. They think it's silly.

Skype is a nice example, but is one of fewer companies like that.

Apple and Google are examples of American companies that started with public funding

Are you sure? A lot of SV companies have had public funding but I'm not sure about them.

"Don't most European know several millionaires who "came out of nothing""

Well, this happens pretty much everywhere, even in 3rd world countries (sure, in a much smaller quantity). Social mobility is important, but a comfortable life in a comfy job may also be a prison (better than going through difficulties, sure)

ctdonath3• 12 years ago

Apple didn't start with public funding. It was a hobby for a couple guys who sold their homemade computers at a club.

Don't confuse the fact that, during startup, a business used available public funding as just another available opportunity to leverage, vs a business that never would have started/survived without public funding.

petercooper• 12 years ago

The English speak English, and I can't think of any serious socially-oriented sites that are popular across the English speaking world that were born in the UK except for last.fm which was mostly a music tracking service than a social area. I'd be interested if anyone can bring any up though, but I'm kinda surprised nothing like a British version of Reddit ever took the Internet by storm.. everyone I know here just uses all the American sites.

eli_gottlieb• 12 years ago

Speaking as a born-and-bred American, America did not produce Facebook. Its content is mostly user-created: the world created Facebook.

If we want to talk about specific public policies conducive to the formation of web start-ups, California created Facebook by refusing to enforce noncompete agreements -- building an environment in which "Take this job and shove it! I'll start my own company!" can't be met with "You'll never work in this industry again!"

raverbashing11• 12 years ago

True. Yeah, the part about California is important. Or maybe even "The Silicon Valley" produced it.

colordrops• 12 years ago

I'm not so sure that Facebook is the best example. It's not clear whether its existence has made a positive mark on the world or a negative one.

Also, Linux was created in another socialized state, Finland. I would argue that the impact of Linux is at least an order of magnitude more profound than Facebook.

walterbell• 12 years ago

Another example, Tim Berners-Lee and the WWW.

raverbashing11• 12 years ago

Well, Linux started with Minix, and of course, after its (initial) creation it had a lot of input from everywhere.

I agree it's a more "European" model of development, sure.

wffurr• 12 years ago

That's not the American model–it's the American myth.

You're leaving out the parts where Americans are enslaved to their corporate jobs through employer-provided healthcare, lack of unions, and a weak safety net. Combine that with regulatory capture by corporations, extreme concentration of wealth, and legalized bribery of legislators, and now you've got the American model.

rbehrends6• 12 years ago

Germany could not have produced Facebook.

"Could not" is a bit strong. "Unlikely" I'd agree with.

But my rationale is different: German businesses traditionally have a strong bias towards B2B models (esp. the "Mittelstand") and startups eschew consumer-facing business models. For example, America has Microsoft, Germany has SAP.

Kurtz794• 12 years ago

Your analysis is very black and white, and reality is probably more nuanced, but I generally agree that Europeans tend to be more risk averse than Americans.

It is also true that something as "simple" as starting your own company or working as a freelancer it often involves a lot of paperwork and upfront costs, which discourages a lot of people.

Still, I believe things are changing (in some countries faster than others), at least on this account.

PythonicAlpha5• 12 years ago

I don't see the connection here.

  In the US you have millionaires came out of "nothing" (of course, from nice universities, nice contacts, etc), people jumping at opportunities, while in Europe this would take 2 meetings, 3 viability studies and 4 months.

That is a really narrow view and a myth that is just not applicable to the majority of people.

Besides extreme things like Facebook, most people of the US are stick to their destiny. If you can't afford to attend an university, you have not much more chance to rise out of the dust in the US than in Europe. Those that succeed are very few. Of course those are presented everywhere, to prove the US dream.

People like Bill Gates never came from poor destiny. Gates parents already where rich. The rich in the US also provide, that people from lower classes don't enter theirs. You have to have visited the right university (costly!) or you have to have the right parents to get the well paid jobs -- or both of course.

Of course, the possibilities in some sectors like IT are better and when you have ideas, you can easier get some money. Also when you loose, you get easier a second chance ... but all that has nothing to do with the education system and even less with university fees.

raverbashing11• 12 years ago

You didn't read anything from the '(' on where I mean exactly what you explained.

dozenal• 12 years ago

We used German scientists to develop our nuclear weapons and the space program. That must count for something.

transpy• 12 years ago

Excellent points! Food for thought

etattva• 12 years ago

All american kids complaining about Tuition, move to Germany now

pranayairan• 12 years ago

nice, it will promote more college education for people who drop of due to tuition fees.

pmontra• 12 years ago

Jump on the time machine and read about university concerns when the city of Hamburg joined this trend in 2011 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/15/german-universi... Is there any German here that can tell us how it is turning out to be? Thanks.

thejdude14• 12 years ago

I think all German states have abolished tuition fees after lots of public outcry about them (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studiengeb%C3%BChr#Deutschland). It says that Niedersachsen decided to abolish fees for the 2014-2015 semester as the last state in Germany to do so.

hippich• 12 years ago

Lately I started thinking that students should be paid, not other way around. I.e. attending university should be considered a job, with pay based on performance (grades)

0xFFC5• 12 years ago

why people down voted such good idea ?

thedaveoflife2• 12 years ago

One "problem" we have occasionally in Berlin: People enrolling as students without actually attending classes to get all the added benefits of being a student in Germany. Almost everything over here carries a student discount.

DasIch6• 12 years ago

The student discounts you get isn't really worth it. The semester ticket for public transport though costs about 1€ a day. That is incredibly cheap compared to the regular tickets.

Other universities have the same problem though. In NRW you can practically travel through the entire state with a semester ticket at roughly the same price.

thedaveoflife2• 12 years ago

The Studenten-BahnCard saves you a ton of money on train travel too

PythonicAlpha5• 12 years ago

It should be noted here, that in the past (10-20 years ago), Germany did not have any tuition fees ... and fared very well with this model for many decades.

Only lately, because the German govnmt wanted to save the costs for the universities, they invented the fees with the argument, that with more funding, the quality of education could be better. But many universities just used the money to cover costs, that where not covered any more from the money they got from the country.

So, essentially it was a cost reduction program to reduce costs for the state finance ... thus freeing money that could go to banks and big companies.

The system was not well received by the students and also some German countries dropped the program, thus putting some pressure on the others, since the students prefered the universities without fees. I guess, that was the reason now, that the last country dropped the fees.

In my opinion, countries like GB make a big error by forcing enormous fees unto students. In the result, the students which do not come from millionaires houses are either at the mercy of the banks for decades or many people that well could study, just do not. Thus the nation looses many talents (in both outcomes).

shamney• 12 years ago

student loans in the UK are provided by the government at relatively low interest rates. There is a minimum earning threshold before repayment can begin and a hard limit on the total proportion of income that can be taken for repayment. So no one is "at the mercy of the banks" and only a small number of people have been discouraged from attending university.

PythonicAlpha5• 12 years ago

and only a small number of people have been discouraged from attending university.

How do you know that. Have you asked the people?

I doubt what you say (not about the loans, I guess you know better than I, but in the US people are really at the mercy of the banks).

Even, when only few are discouraged, you have a loss.

The UK gvnmt should know: You can't have both: Save money and have good education for all without losses. When many use the loans, the savings for the UK are limited, since not all will be able to repay the money in full. Also the UK looses the money from the people that did not attend university. And it looses innovation -- all things that can not be calculated, but might finally well excell the pennies, the UK saves now. It even might loose the future (UK already has nearly only banking left as most important industry, so innovation would be really needed to revive the former proud "empire").

davesque• 12 years ago

Wow...I guess I'm happy for them. But here in the US that just makes me feel depressed.

omot• 12 years ago

"you need to subscribe." I can't read the article.

conkrete• 12 years ago

Would be nice if they could scrap the fees so I could read the entire article...

tyoma2• 12 years ago

I see lots of envy from US and UK based people, but not any thought given to the great opportunity: Germany accepts international students.

Why not go to a German university and get a quality education paid for by the German taxpayer? As a bonus, you'll get to learn German for free.

dmix• 12 years ago

Is it even covered for international students?

In Canada international students pay much higher rates for tuition. About $10k for a program that might cost Canadians $3k. It's a huge racket. I'd be surprised if Germans decided to do the same, as well as taxpayers being will to pay for foreigners education.

tyoma2• 12 years ago

Last time I was in Germany I talked to a Thai gentleman who was an international student there. He said all of his tuition was covered, and that it was standard policy. Some Googling seems to confirm thats the case, but someone from Germany should really clarify.

krrrh• 12 years ago

Yeah, international students pay the same tuition/fees in Germany as Germans, which is to say next to nothing. I know several people that have, or are doing graduate degrees here. Usually there is 100-200€ in fees per semester but that often includes a transit/intercity train pass within the state.

It struck me as odd at first too, coming from Canada where certain programs at certain universities take as many international students as they can to subsidize the rest of the program.

Keep in mind this usually (but not always) involves passing the TestDAF to prove German fluency.

DasIch6• 12 years ago

It is. Allowing international students to study "for free", is generally seen as an investment into getting more highly qualified immigrants as these students may stay in Germany or even if they leave after studying, they will probably retain some contact helping improve international relations.

Considering how Germany is developing demographically this is definitely necessary.

Also you have to keep in mind that we are talking primarily about fixed costs here. Having a few additional students, won't really change the costs. Apart from that living in Germany they will inevitably pay taxes, they will have to pay for health insurance etc. so at least in part they do indirectly pay for their tuition.

rbehrends6• 12 years ago

Well, there are a number of reasons.

First of all, you won't actually get to learn German for free. In order to be admitted, you'll need to already speak Germany at a B2/C1 [1] level of fluency. This is probably the biggest obstacle: if you aren't already fluent, you won't learn a foreign language overnight, and if you are, you've probably already considered studying in Germany.

Second, if you're American, your high school diploma generally isn't enough to be admitted. The requirements are a high school diploma AND a 3.0+ GPA AND either a SAT score in Math/Critical Reading of 1300+ or an ACT of 29+ (successful AP courses or college experience can lower the requirements or substitute for them).

Third, you may not be eligible for financial assistance; even without tuition to worry about, you still need to feed yourself, have a roof over your head, and pay for health insurance (though health insurance for students is less than €80/month). Finding a job can also be difficult (even as an EU citizen, language skills and cultural differences may stand in the way of employment; non-EU foreigners usually are even more limited in their options).

Why does the German government keep tuition free for foreign students? First of all, the costs of running a university are mostly fixed costs and especially in STEM subjects, German universities are running below capacity; second, students that meet the requirements (fluent in German, generally capable of supporting themselves, interested in studying abroad) are sufficiently likely to stay after they've gotten their degree: they'll be valued high-skill immigrants who'll contribute to the economy and probably pay more in taxes later than they received in free tuition.

[1] https://www.daad.de/deutschland/studienangebote/sommerkurse/...

robomartin• 12 years ago

Not sure free education provides absolutely net positive results. More data might be required.

If you look at a country like Argentina, where university level education has been free probably since the country was founded you see issues. Running 10x more people through universities does not create 10x more prosperity. Lots of Medical Doctors in Argentina almost starve. Engineers drive taxis or own pizza joints. The only way some of these people can reliably make a solid change to their lives is to leave the country and seek work elsewhere. In that case the net effect within the nation is still negative.

Again, not sure how to think about something like this other than to operate under my admittedly preconceived notion that most people don't value or work hard at anything that is free. I could be wrong.

0xFFC5• 12 years ago

just having free universities is different than good free universities ! I can't imagine a good graduate starve ! they will create job ! but teaching just math and history and memorizing them and saying these people are well educated is just big lie !

education should be free (and with financial fund for all students) but should be very very competitive (not for money , money should be available for all, good grade should be very competitive ) ! In this case many people will drop universities ! because they cannot afford such efforts ! and educated one will be really educated !

thejdude14• 12 years ago

Free shouldn't mean that everybody attends college. Degree inflation sucks.

I observe the same problem in Germany - more and more people attend school/university for more and more years, but don't turn out any brighter overall.

brkn• 12 years ago

I started paying around 250 Euro when starting my study at the university (2009). This term I had to pay aroung 290 Euro.

The fee for the TU Berlin is composed of:

Verwaltungsgebühr (gem. § 2 Abs. 7 BerlHG) (administrative fee)

50,00 €

Beitrag zur Studierendenschaft (Contribution to the student body)

8,70 €

Beitrag zum Studentenwerk (Contribution to the Student Services)

48,77 €

Beitrag zum Semesterticket (Contribution to the semester ticket)

179,40 €

Beitrag zum Sozialfonds zum Semesterticket (Contribution to the Social Fund for Semesterticket)

3,50 €

= 290,37 €

Of course it is still much cheaper than to study in other countries. But the fees are growing and you have to pay for the semester ticket, which is essentially a ticket for all public transportation in Berlin, even though you wouldn't need it.

*Translated with Google Translator

oscargrouch• 12 years ago

Google translator for German looks awesome; its not that good for Portuguese :/

dang• 12 years ago

From http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/feature-germa... it's clear that tuition fees had only been around for a few years in Germany, were relatively low, and most states had already dropped them.

Edit: I think we'll change the url to this article, because it's more substantive and not behind a paywall like http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article42135... is.

jo_3• 12 years ago

I've been digging through this thread and can't seem to find any information on the impact of 'free tuition' on tuition costs. In the US, we saw an increase in loan availability result in a significant uptick in the price of attendance to universities. If the government is paying the cost of tuition, how is the cost of tuition kept in check?

Disclaimer: I love the idea of free public education. I wish it would take hold in the US. My only concern is how Universities will react to being paid almost arbitrary amounts of money per-student.

PythonicAlpha5• 12 years ago

I live in Germany and from my experience, the system of free education worked ~40 years or more (not counting the last years, that we had those fees, which where invented I guess in the 90s or 00s). We had excellent education for several decades without fees and it worked fine, until the gvnmts (not only the German) got the idea, that there are more important things than education (for example military, big corporations and banks).

Of course you should not just "pay arbitrary amounts" to the universities but hold the people accountable for what they spent.

ginko2• 12 years ago

If the government is paying the cost of tuition, how is the cost of tuition kept in check?

By the government negotiating costs? I'd say a single payer has more bargaining power than individual students. Same as with public healthcare.

jo_3• 12 years ago

I'd completely forgotten about the single-payer negotiation aspect. That makes sense.

ori_b• 12 years ago

If the government is paying the cost of tuition, how is the cost of tuition kept in check?

The government pays what it wants. If the government refuses to pay, what is the university going to do? It's not like it can compete with free.

DasIch6• 12 years ago

What the article describes applies only to public universities. It doesn't apply to private universities, which do require tuition in some cases comparable to what you would have to pay in the UK or the US.

However there are not a lot of private universities in Germany and they have a bad reputation in general.

usrusr3• 12 years ago

My only concern is how Universities will react to being paid almost arbitrary amounts of money per-student.

This is absolutely not how it works over here. The state is not saying "go learn wherever you want, if they send you a bill, we will take care of it", it is funding the universities who have to accept students who bring the educational prerequisites. Funding is certainly coupled to number of students in some way, but the rate is set by the state and universities have to compete for students within their budget.

(more like "hey, university, you seem to be quite popular with the students, you can employ up to X professors, we will pay them for you at our standard rate. Just don't forget to keep serving those students")

jo_3• 12 years ago

Thank you for the reply. I understand much better now. An intuitive understanding of the price/demand/negotiation dynamics still eludes me, but this has helped a lot.

saool6• 12 years ago

I wish the debate focused less on cost-benefit analysis and on ways to engineer a just "chargeback" using loans or taxes and more about the idea that maybe people should be encouraged to pursue education just for the sake of it, to become free men and free thinkers, regardless of whether they'd be economically better off by taking electricity at trade school just to quickly join the assembly line at Volkswagen so that they can make money to buy a bigger plasma TV. /rant

acadien4• 12 years ago

I agree with everything said above, but what about the fact that society will always need plumbers, garbage collectors, fast food employees etc.? I'm not even sure that this is a counter point to what is mentioned above, just more thinking out loud. Is it possible to have a high functioning/efficient society in which there are no economic pressures to motivate people?

rthomas64• 12 years ago

If you believe some people, one day all those jobs will be automated away.

saool6• 12 years ago

That's what The Market should be for, to make those jobs compensated attractively. Plus, people will be more likely to take a part-time job flipping burgers to fund their writing/music/open source project/whatever if they don't have pressure to pay back debt or don't have to worry about health insurance (another can of worms).

JetSpiegel3• 12 years ago

Why can't a plumber be also a free thinker?

endtime• 12 years ago

the fact that society will always need plumbers, garbage collectors, fast food employees etc.

Is that a fact? I'm sure plenty of people would once have said society will always need human "computers" (now so entirely replaced by machines that the original meaning of the word is a historical factoid). Or that society will always need assembly line workers (now well into the process of being replaced by robots).

When I check out at CVS I use a machine, not a human cashier. I bet there are restaurants in Japan/Korea with no human serving staff - just use the touch screen at the table to place your order and it pops out of a slot in the wall when it's ready. Cab drivers will be replaced by self-driving cars in the next 20 years. Et cetera. So I think that part of your comment is quite short-sighted.

On the other hand, the question of what all those folks will/should do once their economic value plummets (which, arguably, has already started happening) is a tricky one.

iammyIP9• 12 years ago

plumbing, garbage collection, food serving and many more things can be done by machines.

usrusr3• 12 years ago

In Germany, the liberal arts programmes are mocked as "taxi driver courses" all the time, ranging from libertarian hate for any form of public spending all the way to happy self-deprecation by those who elect to be taught in a field they like at the risk of not benefitting from their education economically. But aside from a few outliers in the most extreme corners of conservativism, antiintellectualism and leftism most people tend to consider the general availability of those programmes to people who are willing to take that economic risk (high enough even without student loan debt) as an important piece of freedom.

Of course it helps that educating in those fields isn't terribly expensive: you basically pay infrastructure and a few greybeards, the lower ranks are nearly working for free due to the low market value of their education and the resulting attractivity of maybe becoming one of the greybeards themselves. Also, some people might even understand that the greatest thinkers, just like the greatest sportsmen, are unlikely to be produced by focused training of a tiny elite selected by circumstances or a superficial entry test. Talent is rarely visible before a considerable amount of training has been applied.

rthomas64• 12 years ago

But then they wouldn't buy the bigger TV because they'd realize it wouldn't make them happier, and the TV makers would suffer. /s

JetSpiegel3• 12 years ago

Or they see Network[1] and they just never watch TV anymore.

1: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/

crusso• 12 years ago

I love my big TV. Playing games on it on a Saturday evening after my kids have gone to sleep puts an ear-to-ear grin on my face.

virtue32• 12 years ago

This was the case at one point in time. But only the independently wealthy could afford to do this.

As much as I wish your sentiment could be true, it's just not realistic in an economically driven world :/

iammyIP9• 12 years ago

Yes, how do we get the focus off the all-is-economics and refocus on the bigger picture of humanity which also includes all the "useless" non-profit activities that contribute to our culture and humanity, arts, free programming, literature. How is it possible that corporations use free software without giving anything back, or that a local arts scene which enriches the places where we live in a hard to quantifieable way starves out because of insufficient funding.

ahomescu14• 12 years ago

[...] just for the sake of it, to become free men and free thinkers [...]

You're assuming that one can only be a free thinker or a free man after 4 years of university, as opposed to the ignorant slaves that are the rest. What makes you believe this?

iammyIP9• 12 years ago

"people should be encouraged to pursue education just for the sake of it" - You´re assuming an assumption out of the blue.

andrewfong• 12 years ago

He didn't say that 4 years of university was a prerequisite to being a "free thinker", but I think it's probably useful. You get to live and work with fellow students who hail from sorts of backgrounds and have different goals and aspirations from you. Most universities offer classes in a wide range of subject areas, and many even require you to take classes outside of your specialization. There's a high concentration of intellectuals to interact with. And you get a lot of time to think about life, the universe, and everything.

There are certainly substitutes for all of those things outside university (albeit scattered about), and it's questionable whether a full four years if needed. But, all else equal, I think the liberal arts education is conducive to "free thought", if not necessarily economic earning power.

saool6• 12 years ago

You are assuming what I assume...

I think it's much easier to be forced into being a subservient slave if you are not allowed some time to explore and learn, in a general sense.

Granted college is far from a fireproof way–especially nowadays—of reaching any degree of "intelectual enlightenment", and of course you can get to "it" without stepping into a campus, but the time you spend not worrying about "real life" can definitely help.

tormeh3• 12 years ago

That's what high school is for.

SEJeff2• 12 years ago

Do all professors become employed by the government then?

krylon• 12 years ago

In Germany (where I live, I am not sure how it works in other countries), that is how it works.

There are some private universities, but not many (and they tend to focus on "cheap" subjects in the sense of "cheap to provide training" - training a medical doctor or a chemist apparently is far more expensive than training an MBA) - Professors teaching at private universities, are, of course, employed by those universities.

If you want to work in academia, you will have to jump through lots of hoops, usually going from one temporary contract to another until you get tenure. But all along the way, you are technically employed by the government (more strictly, Professors are employed by the state government, not by the federal government, because education is the domain of the federal states.

(Even more strictly speaking there are a few universities that are run by the military for educating their officers - those belong to the federal department of "defense", and the professors teaching there are employees of the federal government.)

SEJeff2• 12 years ago

Wow totally jealous. I'm of German descent (last name: Schroeder, 3rd generation in the US), but we have it very bad in comparison.

We have these parasitic institutions called "for profit" colleges that are typical capitalist greed. Their goal is to extract as much money out of students who can't do math so well and end up with unbelievably large loans. Most state ran colleges are respectable, but the most all of the best colleges in America are private or private "Ivy League" colleges. Becoming a professor requires a PHD and many years to attain tenure. I simply don't think the pay is competitive for public colleges vs private "for profit" colleges that are money making machines. Most of the best professors work for places you've likely heard of like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. None of those are state colleges. That being said, some state colleges are wonderful (USC is a great example). It is just different, and unfortunately a lot less of a possibility for much of America's working class.

US primary and secondary schools are mandatory and free, but college/university (no differentiation in the US) are becoming prohibitively expensive for all of the lower class and much of the middle class. It is bad.

The US has a few military colleges such as westpoint and the US Army War College, but those are only open to soldiers and officers, so are a different thing altogether.

Note that I work in technology and didn't go to college. Not because I couldn't afford it, but because after 4 years of military service, I was able to trivially get a job in technology. I get paid to write code.

zwieback5• 12 years ago

Another point: US universities look very different from German ones. I live in Corvallis (OSU) now but grew up and went to school in Stuttgart Germany. Compared to the German universities our US schools are country clubs: dorms, restaurants, coffee shops, fitness clubs, green spaces everywhere. Don't even get me started on the sports, it's an outrage how US schools have become sports franchises.

I'm guessing most US students would be shocked by the reality of German public universities which basically consist of giant rooms with blackboards and there's not much general ed to speak of. At the graduate level it gets more interesting but that's in years 5-8. My first 4 years studying ME in Stuttgart were almost 100% lectures with a final exam at the end of the semester. Virtually no tutoring and very little corrected homework.

You don't get what you don't pay for. On the other hand, you don't really get what you pay for in the US either since the universities have become so good at sucking up more and more student loan money without really improving on their core mission of providing higher education.

ibebrett2• 12 years ago

That sounds perfect to me (an american who tends to like learning through MOOCs)

personalcompute• 12 years ago

I have to wonder if there is anything like this available in the US aside from MOOCs? I haven't explored far, but even the ostensibly bare bones community colleges I've looked at were trying to emulate the typical inclusive social experience model.

mathattack3• 12 years ago

Don't even get me started on the sports, it's an outrage how US schools have become sports franchises.

This pisses me off too. It's why I don't give money to my Sports Franchise undergrad.

skinnybatch4• 12 years ago

I remember my mother speaking to some college admissions person at a semi-prestigious school in Pennsylvania, many years back when I was in the throws of applying. When speaking to some admissions confusion with respect to my high school, the guy said, "Well frankly, it's not called the Ivy League because of its academics." That's always stuck with me. Athletic scholarships? You betcha. Academic scholarships? What are those?

adrianN• 12 years ago

I studied in Berlin (Berlin has very little money) and while nearly all my undergraduate education was in the form of black board lectures (which I like very much), all my homework was corrected and every lecture had a tutorial session where homework was discussed and you could ask questions about things you didn't understand in the lecture.

tormeh3• 12 years ago

My experience as well.

thejdude14• 12 years ago

In most cases, these tutoring classes are even run by students (because the professors don't want to / don't have time), so you get good explanations that you can actually understand, and the tutors have a nice way to make some money on-campus, and to go deeper into the subject themselves.

superuser23• 12 years ago

dorms

If efficiently managed, dorms shouldn't represent a significant burden on students above the price of living in off-campus housing.

restaurants

Generally make a profit.

coffee shops

Generally make a profit while employing unskilled students.

fitness clubs

Okay, these are probably excessive, but fitness is fairly important.

green spaces everywhere

I'd be really surprised if this accounted for an appreciable percentage of institutional expenses, except maybe if the campus was located somewhere with very expensive real estate.

I'm guessing that the real story is that German universities bring in a lot more taxpayer money and employ fewer people.

kenko• 12 years ago

It doesn't matter if restaurants, cafés, etc. generally make a profit; that's not what the university should be concerned with.

thejdude14• 12 years ago

German here who also studied abroad for a year (US state college). Overall, there are many similarities, but also differences.

I was surprised how freaking EASY everything was in the US university, compared to Germany. Multiple-choice tests, not much background knowledge assumed. Very school-like system (instead of assuming students will learn some of the necessary background at home).

I've seen different German universities, and indeed some of them might not offer a gym or on-campus dorms. In fact, often at least a few university buildings are spread out throughout the city, instead of being in a single connected campus area.

My German university had some subsidized housing though, and there were also private student dorms and they were very cheap, unlike the US dorm which was IMHO quite expensive. I also had a small but nice gym at my German uni.

Probably every German uni has a restaurant ("Mensa") which is often very cheap because of subsidies. Again, in the USA we had to buy expensive meal plans and overall it wasn't cheap at all.

But I loved the connectedness of the US campus, the atmosphere, the greens. The whole campus culture gives you the opportunity to either have a great partying time or a great studying time - I've had a bit of both. But overall, in Germany I learned MUCH more of the technical stuff.

guard-of-terra• 12 years ago

Don't they have practical courses? Do experiments?

Soviet and post-soviet education systems were modelled after german ones, but lab practice makes around 30%. For more abstract topics, practice/discussion/seminars.

revelation• 12 years ago

There are usually a variety of modules

- lectures: final exam that accounts for 100% of your grade, and sometimes (possibly obligatory) regular homework

- practical courses / labs: how grades are assigned vary, sometimes this will be a "do a project in a team" kind of assignment, sometimes it's experiments where you are expected to write one or more reports

- seminars: you'll be assigned a topic (usually some recent, narrow scientific result, no wildcard giant topics here) and expected to write a report on it & give a presentation

The exact mixture depends on your course of study.

zwieback5• 12 years ago

I did have a few "Praktikum" units but they were very crude, basically recreating expected results on very old lab equipment.

In higher level classes I had a lot of really excellent practical projects to work on, some of them directly financed by small and medium companies.

I guess it should be mentioned that most German University degrees take somewhere around 5-6 years so the hands-on work usually comes later.

ajmurmann5• 12 years ago

It depends on what you study. In my CS classes we had a few lab sessions where we had to implement small programs and sometimes even larger projects. However, a friend of mine studied chemistry and she never got to leave the lab.

mahyarm• 12 years ago

Hiring person tutors once in a while in this situation is miles ahead in cost/benefit ratio compared to an american university. And with the Berliner comment, it sounds like you can still get feedback and questions answered.

aioprisan• 12 years ago

Hiring a tutor that may or may not be in tune with the specific issue at hand that you need help with and the class/topic context vs going to a TA who is intimately familiar with the course and is likely already leading recitation sessions and exam reviews, and two widely different things.

legomylibrum2• 12 years ago

I'm no fan of how enormous college sports have become, but fwiw they are enormous sources of income and despite the extravagant stadiums and suchlike, they often pay for valuable research, courses, and amenities.

What's troubling about them is the exploitation of the student athletes; the ones that make money give a lot back to the university as a whole.

alistairSH• 12 years ago

Sources for any of that? While some sports (football, men's basketball) are profit centers that can offset the cost of non-revenue sports, that really only applies to the top-tier programs (NCAA Division 1).

I've never heard of university sports programs being major sources of revenue for research or courses (outside of possibly sports-related studies).

rb2k_2• 12 years ago

Greetings from another Stuttgart expat! :)

zwieback5• 12 years ago

Hope you have a good source of Laugenbroetchen, one of the specialties that are hard to find or recreate here.

bertil• 12 years ago

I guess your point makes sense for general university. However, there is a way to have fairly cheap education with good feedback, with skill selection. I went through the French equivalent of the Ivy League (Paris Tech): tuition was “free” (hundreds of Euros per year, paid-for for most students with economic difficulty) and tutoring was systematic. However, having consistent classrooms where groups of 15 had the same level helped a lot.

Those schools receive a lot more tax-payer money than university does, but not impossibly more. Saving on that without sacrificing the pedagogy seems doable: teachers often were alumni that could have easily contributed out of duty and prestige (I certainly did: paperwork to get paid was a maze).

rbehrends6• 12 years ago

To go into more detail, here's the typical lecture format at a German university (note that this is "typical", not universal, and professors have a lot of leeway in how they can structure their courses).

There'll be a lecture twice a week (four "semester hours", 2 times 2 * 45 minutes) and a two semester hour exercise session. The lecture will be held by a professor [1]; the exercise session for undergraduate courses will generally be conducted by a TA in smaller groups.

More often than not there won't be a textbook, except for heavily standardized courses (or where the professor chooses to pick one). You'll work off the professor's lecture notes and any notes that you took yourself (sometimes the lecture notes are basically a textbook by themselves, but that's obviously a lot of work for a professor). The lecture notes may recommend additional literature, which is generally available through the library's course reserves (and out of which students will photocopy anything they consider relevant; private copies short of wholesale copies of books are generally legal in Germany) or online (in the case of individual papers).

You'll get homework once a week, distributed as printouts during the lecture (and/or available on the course website). Students are encouraged to work on homework in groups and to even turn in their results as a group.

Homework will be graded, but it doesn't count towards your final grade; instead, you will be required to get 50% of the total points to be admitted to the final exam (this is more an incentive than an actual threshold). You can generally even copy the results from somewhere else (you're doing homework as preparation for the exam, so you're only hurting yourself if you do it).

Homework will be returned and reviewed during the exercise session, usually with either the TA or one of the students presenting the solution to each question on the blackboard and discussing it.

Your entire grade will be derived from the final exam (some courses these days have two exams, one midterm and one final exam so that your entire grade doesn't ride on one day's performance). Some courses may also have an oral rather than a written exam.

There generally won't be grading on a curve (though the professor can adjust the grades if the exam turned out to be harder than intended). If you fail to meet the standards that the university expects of its students, you fail. German professors won't shy away from letting most of the students in a course fail (though they will likely be sad when that happens). That's the price of a mostly open admission system combined with the university's desire to maintain its academic reputation.

In addition to lectures, there will be (depending on the subject), seminars, lab courses, etc. You will also have to write a thesis (including for a Bachelor's degree).

In general, there's very little handholding (that's not specific to Germany, though). You're expected to be able to both study independently and work productively in a group (skills that you should have learned in school) without needing support.

[1] Using the term "professor" broadly to include "privatdozenten" etc.

Dewie3• 12 years ago

There'll be a lecture twice a week (four "semester hours", 2 times 2 * 45 minutes) and a two semester hour exercise session. The lecture will be held by a professor [1]; the exercise session for undergraduate courses will generally be conducted by a TA in smaller groups.

That sounds like an average course that I've taken at my university here in Norway.

justinlloyd2• 12 years ago

I've attended four different higher education colleges and three universities in the UK, and two universities in the US. Mostly STEM, some business and law courses.

My UK experience is pretty much in line with the above summary from my college life between 1986 and 1995. Lots of blackboard lectures, practical coursework where necessary, one, occasionally two exams per subject. Coursework grades determined whether you would be permitted to sit your exams. Broad spectrum of skill and knowledge levels at the start of the course, very even distribution towards the end. You either figured it out, or you failed.

My US experience was more like school, lots of handholding, lots of silly child-like exercises, broad spectrum of skill levels and knowledge at the beginning and it remained so right through to the end. Lots more negotation between students and professor about assignments and when they are due, and skirting the rules, especially on the business courses for an MBA I was enrolled in. The pace on the MBA could be described as "plodding" at best.

This is also my ancedotal experience and also probably not universal.

adsfasdf23f23f• 12 years ago

This sounds like my experience studying ME at Michigan State

lorenzfx• 12 years ago

This is not my experience at all. I studied physics at a public university in Germany. We had about the same number of tutoring hours as lectures each week and had to hand in homework every week for every lecture. That homework got graded and decided if we were permitted to take the final exam. Also from the second semester on we had compulsory experimental courses throughout the year.

On the other hand you are right, there is hardly any general education at university level, but that is (supposed) to happen in high school. At least compared to the UK, high school covers a much broader range of subjects.

tormeh3• 12 years ago

Well the Berlin universities sort of have those things as well - federally funded student housing, canteens, coffee shops and university sports. I think the difference is mainly in the amount of money thrown at it. American universities just tend to have a ridiculous amount of money to throw at everything - from research to fitness centers.

In my native Norway the universities have more money than in Germany, but still not the kind that American universities have. The American dominance in research comes from two things: A PhD culture and the best lab equipment on the planet.

2ion3• 12 years ago

there's not much general ed to speak of

If by 'general ed' you are referring to optional classes that are not necessarily related to your core subject or electives, I would like to say that you have very much the option (and in most reformed Bachelor-type programs it's a requirement) to take such classes and choose among many types of seminars ranging from communication and negotiation coaching to optional language classes.

Also note that in contrary to (or so I think) most for-profit US universities which impose a rigorous bookkeeping on credits taken vs. tution fees, students at German public universities can -- on their own initiative, by asking the professors or offices directly -- easily listen in to or take exams in random classes, even from other departments. If the professor agrees, they'll get a singed certificate with a grade which they can use for credit in their electives. I on one occasion took a Psychology as well as Economics classes, and had no problems in turning these into useful credits.

You don't get what you don't pay for

German universities work for people who can act on their own initiative, they enable people to progress. Guidance is optional and provided on request/on intervention. I'm thankful for that by not charging as a for-profit institution, our universities don't need to cater to their clients as (service) staff.

zwieback5• 12 years ago

Agreed, the German system worked well for me and there are other higher-ed systems in Germany that take up the middle ground between 6-year degrees and vocational schools.

It would be politically impossible in the US to have a high school system like Germany's where university students effectively get selected in 5th grade and in consequence the US has everyone entering the same undergraduate system. Universities here have to cater to a broader audience, they just don't do it that well because even state schools now look very much like for-profit operations.

thejdude14• 12 years ago

That's the thing. German unis aren't schools; in fact the whole point (or at least original point before we got degree inflation) of our "high school" (Gymnasium) degree is to prepare students to be able to go on with a higher education on their own.

If you want a more school-like experience, there are Fachhochschulen (more technical schools, "FH") instead of universities. Even in Germany many students complain that unis are too technical and don't provide enough handholding, and I always think WTH don't they just go to an FH then?

Often the FH offers very similar degrees, and while some employers care about the difference, many don't mind (many even don't care if you have a BSc or a MSc/Diploma, at least in IT). So there is a "Diploma in computer science" and a "diploma in computer science (FH)", in addition to the nowadays more common BSc/MSc.

learc832• 12 years ago

Also note that in contrary to (or so I think) most for-profit US universities

Most US Universities aren't for-profit. In 2000 (the latest stat I could find) about 6% of college students were enrolled in for-profit universities). For-profit schools also generally have rather dubious reputations.

Florin_Andrei2• 12 years ago

On the other hand, you don't really get what you pay for in the US either since the universities have become so good at sucking up more and more student loan money without really improving on their core mission of providing higher education.

If you laser-focus on making money, then eventually you become pretty good at it.

If you laser-focus on educating people, then eventually you become pretty good at it.

ekianjo2• 12 years ago

If you laser-focus on educating people, then eventually you become pretty good at it.

I don't think you can call putting 500 people in an amphitheater in front of a single person and a blackboard remotely "pretty good at educating". It's one of the worst ways ever to transmit knowledge. And it shows.

MikeKusold• 12 years ago

Don't even get me started on the sports, it's an outrage how US schools have become sports franchises.

I graduated from a very large sports school (tOSU), and our sports program enables us have a relatively low in-state tuition. The 2010-2011 football season netted OSU 51.8 Million. 2011-2012: 48.7 Million. They also serve as a great way to get alumni to donate to their alma mater (in order to increase your odds of getting football tickets, you can donate). It is anything other than an outrage.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/sportsmoney/2011/05/31/a-close-l...

wtbob• 12 years ago

This source (http://businessofcollegesports.com/2011/06/01/how-profitable...) indicates that after expenses are factored in, the OSU athletic department nets $93,678.

And that doesn't work in the moral costs of supporting an athletic program. What merits it, if a man win the world but lose his soul?

SamReidHughes• 12 years ago

The football team doesn't pay its employees.

jwiechers• 12 years ago

You don't get what you don't pay for.

True, but I would argue besides the point: the US universities/colleges offer a more integrated experience because many have a somewhat different tradition more in line with the "monk-like" experience from UK universities such as Oxford and Cambridge than with the public university systems of continental europe which assumes that many of these amenities are provided by other actors.

They also have to make up for massive differences in educational level, meaning you have a lot of foundational courses that are plainly unnecessary from the perspective of the German educational system with its, previously, 13 years of schooling -- and Germany is a lot more homogenous in that respect compared to the US, so the system works without all that much hand-holding.

thejdude14• 12 years ago

If by "monk-like" you mean being distracted/surrounded by tons of incredibly hot 18y/o bombshells wearing hot- or jogging-pants (depending on the season) and flip-flops, then yes. I loved my year in the US, but it wasn't because of the monkness. (Although as a technical student or nerd you might end up the monk among the ladies.)

macco• 12 years ago

My question is: Where did you learn more?

zwieback5• 12 years ago

I work in the US but I never went to University here so it's hard to say. The German system worked great for me but honestly, I think the US systems would work just as well, assuming I could pay the tuition at a decent school.

Havoc• 12 years ago

Hardly a u-turn. They went from no fees, to negligible fees (uproar) to no fees.

Also note that "fees" in the German context is a little bit different than other countries. e.g. Some of the compulsory costs are the equivalent to a transport season pass. Whilst I've got mixed feelings about that it sure seems more tangible that X amount of money disappearing into the general varsity fund.

awendt2• 12 years ago

I'm surprised no one brought up the bigger picture of which types of education Germans pay for and which they don't.

While going to university has been free for a long time in Germany (and will be again according to this article), German parents pay for kindergarten and day care.

In most countries, it's the other way around and I'd gladly pay for my kids to go to university than pay for the much more basic education before primary school. I paid up to 500 Euros a months for my son's kindergarten. (This is is maximum amount, but that's another story...)

This is why I don't get that students were so eager to demonstrate against the introduction of tuition, claiming education is then reserved for rich people. The same argument could be brought up against payments for day care, but no one will acknowledge that. (I guess this is because students are willing to plan for family after the degree.)

Reversing this situation would result in better integration of kids from families with immigrant background which is a far better goal than to make higher education more accessible, regardless of money.

sveme• 12 years ago

You are obviously right - kindergarten should be free for all. But you establish a false dichotomy: why exchange free university with free kindergarten? Why not have both? You could certainly argue with limited budget availability, but in the end it's a societal/political decision.

awendt2• 12 years ago

I'm not saying I don't want both :)

All I'm saying: If budget is the issue, I'm all for kindergarten. If it's not an issue, make everything free.

ajuc• 12 years ago

Poland has both paid and free universities, state-run universities are free (but just for the daily courses, there are also evening courses and weekend courses that are paid).

Free courses are paid by taxes, and universities have a limit on how much students they can admit on paid courses depending on how much they admit on free courses.

There are also private universities with just paid courses, but they are much worse quality (they admit almost anoyone for money, so better students go to the state universities to study for free, and worse students only get admited to the paid ones).

The end result is - almost everybody go to the university and do M.A. in something. The education is usually OK, but not great (especially on the worse universities). Everybody have M.A. so it isn't advantage in the job market, just a requirement (there were postman job offerings requiring M.A. for example :) ).

The problem is - Polish universities don't do much science, they are mostly for education, people call them M.A. factories.

CurtMonash• 12 years ago

A century ago the German system basically had no grading until you had a set of oral examinations for your diploma at the end. Or so I was told by my German family.

When did that get changed?

alexweber• 12 years ago

Could someone please post the full text of the article…

Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

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