9 ms·

How Germany abolished tuition fees

150 points by HarryHirsch 11y ago

k__ 11y ago
Sadly I studied in the 4 years, which had these fees. Paid about 3500€, but made enouh money to get rid of them in the first year after I got my degree.
- rb2k_ 11y ago
  Same here, even got one of the last years of the draft :) In the end, the money I paid is barely anything compared to the salary it resulted in. Especially considering that I was able to get BAföG which basically paid for itself in the end.
morb 11y ago
One Finnish student describes his experiences with the German education system: http://www.zeit.de/studium/hochschule/2015-08/study-abroad-germany http://www.zeit.de/studium/hochschule/2015-08/study-abroad-g...
- lorenzhs 11y ago
  Having studied in Germany, I have a few quibbles with that article. On 1: teachers not uploading material is hardly a systemic issue. Not all academics are great teachers, that is true. But complaining about having to take notes seems a bit whiny to me. On 2: whether you spend the semester learning and then have a quick recap before the exam, or whether you spend it goofing off and then quickly memorize everything until the end of the exam is your choice, and your responsibility. If you need constant motivation to keep working, that is not the universities problem. You have to work on that yourself. 3. I have never taken such an exam, but the exams described here are just terrible. I assume this is related to point 1. 4. I've only ever had one card at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, for the library, the cantina, building access, printing credit, admin stuff, and student ID. As the author noted, this is being changed in Cologne too, so I'm not sure what's the point except a good rant. 5. No argument here. Administration seems to be universally terrible. 6. This is Point 1 again. 7. Wtf, Cologne? 8. Duplicate of #5. I'm not claiming that everything is roses in Germany, but some of the author's points are about individual teachers or issues at the University of Cologne, and do not do the title justice.
  - endzone 11y ago
    it's not a problem specific to germany, but he makes a legitimate criticism of the classic lecture format. it is an antiquated mode of delivery, an extremely poor use of students' time, and really should not be part of university education any longer. i suppose it is one way of limiting cost...
    - collyw 11y ago
      What do you see as being better alternatives? I am not saying they are not there, but compared to online course for example, I think pyscially attending lectures gives more incentive to learn having invested the effort to actually turn up. What do other people think?
      - jlg23 11y ago
        > What do you see as being better alternatives? Online lectures. Uploaded scripts. (At least in my university good scripts were followed so closely, that a "lecture" was exactly what the name says "somebody reading the script". And bad lectures were an utter waste of time. I remember one math prof who permanently corrected his proofs back and forth - in the end we just took photos of his blackboard "art" (back in 2000), because taking notes was absolutely pointless.) With modern technology those could be annotated; students could have online discussions about those (think "soundcloud-style interface"). Everyone could benefit from those, not only students. Can I please live in a world where I can do every course from home, at my own pace? I'd happily pay to have my all tests evaluated and finally for time spent by university employees on my exams - for which I'd sign up whenever I am ready and without formally being enrolled as a student. > I think pyscially attending lectures gives more incentive to learn Or it allows for less time to learn. In my university the different institutes are distributed across the whole city and I spent 12 hours every week just on commutes between those. Thus, people who need to work for paying for their studies (not tuition, but rent, food, transportation) are already excluded by being forced to physically attend. Same for people who already have a job. I am not talking about those few who can study while working because their employer supports this, I'm talking about the carpenter with an interest in theoretical physics, astronomy or arts.
- HarryHirsch 11y ago
  Point # 2, the complaint that grades are based on one exam at the end of the course is actually a feature. At my lovely State College I'm teaching a course with weekly graded lab reports. You grade the blasted things because each of them counts towards the final grade, but there is no time to review or critique them. From the shape of what the kids hand in, they need much guidance and critiquing, and we are failing them by not giving it. They are clearly incapable of independent study at this stage.
  - endzone 11y ago
    indeed. people like to imagine an idealised world of highly able, motivated and disciplined students. why design an education system for a set of students that doesn't really exist?
lorenzhs 11y ago
I think the article is very quick to dismiss the difference in number of graduates between Germany and the UK (27 vs 48%, was it?). Why do half of young Brits get a University degree, while only a quarter of young Germans do? One part of the answer is of course the German school system, which only permits students who attended a "Gymnasium" (grammar school) to attend university, but that applies to roughly half of all students [1]. Since schools are tiered by academic ability, it would be safe to assume that those wishing to pursue higher education would attend a Gymnasium, so we're nearly back to square one. Statistics [1] also show that in Germany 43% started a university education, but only 28% completed one. Meanwhile, UK universities boast with their high retention rates, which might raise the question of how they achieve this without compromising the quality of the degrees. (My experience in the UK was that just about anyone got a degree, and a third (that's a grade, not a fraction) is basically worthless) All this, I think, leads to two points. First, a lot of jobs in the UK require a degree, although it is not clear to me why. Secondly, while German universities might not be as present at the very top, the baseline seems to be a lot higher than in the UK (several factors play into this, among them the ability to switch subjects (due to lack of fees and very little social stigma) and not caring about retention rates, i.e. letting bad students fail), which is probably while the German diploma was so highly regarded. (Another major difference I noticed was that in German universities, nobody checks up on you, and you are expected to take responsibility as an adult, whereas in England, it felt like the University was trying to be my Mummy.) Lastly, the omnipresent reminder: foreigners don't pay tuition in Germany, either. There is a language barrier, but I probably don't need to point out all the articles which were here on HN not so long ago about increasing numbers of US and British students in Germany. [1] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiturientenquote_und_Studienanfängerquote#Studienberechtigte https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiturientenquote_und_Studie...
- wuschel 11y ago
  Good point, but I would like to compare the entire educational/job training spectrum. In Germany, many people decide to go for an apprenticeship or a position in the dual educational system [1], even if they qualify for the university path with the matura. These are not counted as university students. I agree on the remark on baseline quality of university. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system
lumberjack 11y ago
There are less prospective university applicants in Germany because of their tiered and somewhat controversial secondary education system. It does not have anything to do with tuition fees. As for tuition fees, you can make a completely tax funded third level education system work. Developing countries do it all the time, successfully. You do this by restricting entrance to the brightest through a harsh selection process. The problem with this is that in the long run you end up with a large percentage of the population who has only minimal education. People might sneer at somebody with a degree in English Literature but it does make a difference to live in a country where the majority have some tertiary level education experience, if only because they appreciate education more and can instil that sort of appreciation in their kids.
- lispm 11y ago
  Well skilled people in Germany are found in many professions. In the UK less so. For example apprenticeships are not widely supported as in Germany. Go to Siemens, these people will work with the latest machines, materials and processes. They will get a dual education: work and school. If they want they can make their 'Meister' and go to the University: http://www.hochschulkompass.de/studium/suche/studieren-ohne-abitur.html http://www.hochschulkompass.de/studium/suche/studieren-ohne-... That there has to be ways for people to go to University who have not been at a Gymnasium, this idea is not unknown in Germany. ;-)
  - solistice 11y ago
    Especially since students from a Hauptschule can do their 10th grade and students from a Realschule can get into the Gymnasiale Oberstufe as well as people being aged out of those options being able to do their Abitur at a later time.
- endzone 11y ago
  i would contend it makes very little difference because of the naturally limited fraction of the population with the ability to benefit from post secondary education.
- Mithaldu 11y ago
deleted 11y ago
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lordnacho 11y ago
My experience of the UK and Germanic systems: In the UK, you can do any degree and people will still hire you for a graduate job. Something like a bank or a consultancy won't care whether you did Engineering or Classics. They might care more which university you attended. The idea seems to be that anyone fairly smart can do anything. In the Germanic world (Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia) doing a degree is choosing a life path. You're an Electronic Engineer? Great, you can apply for jobs in EE. Nobody else can. And you'll have a hard time doing something else, relative to the British EE student. There's a real belief that studying something somehow makes you competent at a job. Neither of these views is entirely true, of course. Your Classicist will find it harder than your CS guy to write good OO code. Your German EE guy may well find himself getting by on soft skills. What does this mean with regard to tuition fees? I suppose the Germanic system requires a certain number of graduates in various sectors, and employers would feel justified in complaining if society does not push out a sensible number of engineers. Likewise, you will hear the occasional voice in the public debate about too many people being allowed to do courses with no specific purpose. Since society is paying for this, everyone who can write to a newspaper has a voice in what young people get up to. As a young person, you really need to be on the academic path quite early to beat the selection system. In the UK, where having a degree is a sort of entry pass to the middle class, the debate is more about fairness than economic goals. If you make it expensive, poor kids have a hard time getting those nice desk jobs that allow you to buy a house and car. On the other hand, it's individual whether you want to take out a loan, a risk that's up to each 18 year old. If you want to climb the ladder, you can pay up and give it a shot. So there's a big question of what university is for. Is it so that society can fill out certain jobs? Or is it a vehicle for individual advancement? Of course it's a bit of both, but there are legitimate arguments for higher or lower fees, and pros and cons on both sides.
- dingaling 11y ago
  > Your Classicist will find it harder than your CS guy to write good OO code True but in my US & UK corporate experience we found that someone with a humanities degree and a Masters or Diploma in CS was by far the best hire for any technology position that had end-user exposure. A mixture of analytical, deductive and soft-skills that the inverse combination never seemed to match. Perhaps found it harder to write good ( smart or super-efficient ) OO code but could usually write decent code to better-researched and specified requirements.
legulere 11y ago
One reason why there are so few people studying in Germany is that we still have a really big apprenticeship system where in other countries most people go to university for (nurses, preschool teachers, there's even an application developer's apprenticeship). One reason why Germany can allow itself to have no fees is the language barrier. Sweden offers lots of English master programmes and has introduced fees for non-EU citizens (EU citizens have to be treated the same as own citizens in this regard under EU law ). The Netherlands and Austria already complain about the masses of German students flocking to them. I guess there's some anxiety that there would be a storm of foreign students at British universities if fees were dropped.
- mafribe 11y ago
  there's some anxiety that there would be a storm of foreign students at British universities if fees were dropped. The UK used to have a system where foreign (= non-EU) students pay significantly more than home-students.
  - IkmoIkmo 11y ago
    The EU has a population of half a billion people, even if UK/EU fees were dropped and all non-EU fees stayed very high, his point still stands, you'd probably see a ton of European students flock to the UK. And seeing as there's nothing you're allowed to do to prevent discrimination between EU members, they just decided for the UK to be more expensive than everyone else. This keeps UK schools relatively british and generates a ton of money on the comparatively fewer foreigners who still decide to make the trip. It also filters out a lot of the 'bottom socioeconomic class', and that lack of social mobility for them will probably create tons of inequality and friction later down the line. Some of the rates at UK schools are absolutely insane for European standards.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    Used to? It still does. Consider my university, for example. For the academic year 2015/2016 it will charge £13,000/yr. to international students, versus £9,000/yr. to UK students: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/infohub/finance/tuition-fee-rates-201516-667.php http://www.abdn.ac.uk/infohub/finance/tuition-fee-rates-2015...
dghughes 11y ago
Eliminating tuition fees depends on the benefit to the region. In my little province for as long as I can recall there have always been complaints about the cost of tuition and any fees at the University. It's a small University with a mix of local students, regional (within ~400km), some from the northeastern US and others from outside US/Canada (China in particular). Eliminating any fees just means the student gets a break then as always when they are done with school immediately leaves the province for a job elsewhere. That's zero benefit to the taxpayers who would cover the cost.
- wirrbel 11y ago
  This is a problem, even more so if you have regions with and without tuition. If provinces have the same tuition rates, there is not much damage done, because your province will receive employees from other provinces. I have been to Canada for an exchange semester and it was an astonishing experience to me in regards to tuition. Most students I talked with where in favor of tuition fees (although they hit them quite a bit financially). In general, they were quite willing to spend a considerable amount of money on top of tuition for university related things. 3 books $200 each on the syllabus for a lecture that is not borrow-able in the university library? Not an issue, people just bought them (I actually bought one book via German amazon in its translation, because it was ~50 EUR there and ~200$ in Canada, so I saved considerably even when including shipping costs). In Germany, Professors often offer their lecture notes (often book grade layed out with latex) as free downloads. In Germany I have lived in a dorm and had roommates that would probably not have studied with tuition as high as in Germany (back then my home state had a EUR 1200 a year tuition, a measure that was in place for roughly 5 years I think and quickly repealed because it was enormously unpopular). Knowing that education is sponsored by the state makes me much more willing in paying my taxes, now that I actually earn a living. In the 19th century, lecturers apparently collected tuition upon entrance at the door of the lecture hall. Dunno if this might be a model for tuition to compromise on. Only pay for the services you take. Looking at American tuition fees, I sometimes wonder why students would not just pay for private tutors...
tim333 11y ago
The UK had no tuition fees when I went to university in 1983. They even gave you a couple of grand for living costs if you were hard up. The trouble was that university education was only available for about 15% of the population, basically sorted by exam results so if you didn't make that you were kind of screwed. Now it's like 47% go to university. Neither system was/is perfect.
jostmey 11y ago
Can anyone no matter what their grades move onto college? If not, then the German system is extremely unfair. People unable to attend college end up partially subsidizing those who can. Can someone clarify how higher education works in Germany?
- rb2k_ 11y ago
  You can't easily attend university unless you went to the "Gymnasium". There are ways for those who didn't, but it's a lot harder. > People unable to attend college end up partially subsidizing those who can. How? The people that did attend college will more taxes over their lifetime, so you could argue that the college people are subsidising the other college people.
  - walshemj 11y ago
    And the ones who didn't get to go to the Gymnasium -> University route will hit a ceiling and be unable to progress beyond a certain point.
allendoerfer 11y ago
>Can the German university system afford to expand and produce more graduates under the current taxpayer-funded "free" model? It does not need to. Germany has a world-class apprenticeship system. Why would we want to copy the English/American system, when our society is built on different foundations. I remember the times when Germany was laughed at for its big industrial sector and was urged to move into (financial) services like the UK did. One financial crisis later the German way all of a sudden is the way to go. So for gods sake, do not change a running system. I would argue that someone, who has a Meister [0] (confusing, because we have the Master instead of the Diplom now, too) has much better career prospects than someone who has studied "something with media" as we call it here, just because he or she did not know what to do. We lately came up with something new, called Duales Studium, where you work at a company while you are studying at a special school that grants Bachelors, similar to the apprenticeship system. The model is quite popular, but I am not sure if it increases the number of higher education degrees or if their students would have studied at universities of applied science anyway. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_craftsman#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_craftsman#Germany
- irremediable 11y ago
  Very well said. I think it's stupid for the UK to push more people into taking university degrees. IMO we've already devalued a lot of degrees by doing so. Apprenticeships make far more sense for many things.
- liamzebedee 11y ago
  > where you work at a company while you are studying at a special school that grants Bachelors For reference, I think the English equivalent is a co-operative degree.
- inflagranti 11y ago
  Some anecdotal evidence in support of this claim that such craftsman title might give you better prospects than certain university degrees: A friend of mine learned mill-working directly after secondary education in Switzerland an apprentice system very similar to the German one. He had no problem finding a job after this and could even easily move abroad where he now works as an independent contractor. On the other hand, I know quite a few people with university degrees that had a hard time to find a job in their area and definitely would have an even harder time getting a visa abroad in a saturated market. This might of course be rather coincidental, but I know that in general craftsmanship titles like the German Meister or the Swiss Diploma are highly recognised internationally, and it's well known that Germany and Switzerland do a lot of high quality engineering, which I would attribute in a large part to this education system.
rb2k_ 11y ago
Another interesting part of the equation is BAföG. From Wikipedia: > The Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz (mostly known as BAföG, its abbreviation) is the Federal Training Assistance Act for students at secondary schools and universities in Germany. The law, which regulates student loans in the country, is often referred to by students who simply say they receive "BAföG". Especially if a student's parents aren't well off, there's a good chance he/she can get a 0% loan from the government (and 50% of that loan is given as a gift).
- solistice 11y ago
  Also BAFöG does not need to be paid back for 5 years after graduation, with a years worth of extension if the student cannot affort the associated costs when requested.
  - Dinoso 11y ago
    There is even a discount if you pay back the full amount of money. I think it was around 25% but I'm not sure.
    - rb2k_ 11y ago
      And another one if you are in the top x% of your study
SagelyGuru 11y ago
The article is written from an English perspective. It does follow very closely the usual worn out consensus of recent decades that it is mandatory to further increase the numbers of graduates, despite their growing personal indebtedness. Apparently, according to the author, this is all justified by the fact that graduates have lower unemployment rates than non-graduates. I think it is time to start questioning this dogma. It is the more able half of the population that is typically selected for entrance by the UK universities (and so it should be). Surely, it would be very surprising indeed, if they were not also the more employable half, regardless of whether they study or not? The content of their studies is increasingly irrelevant anyway, as is confirmed by the fact that "more than half of graduates are overqualified for their jobs". That means they are the more able people competing for the same old unqualified jobs and so, of course, they win. In these circumstances, the "studies" of ever increasing proportion of population are nothing more than a way of transferring more of their future incomes to the bankers. It is an interesting "coincidence" that the drive for expansion of student numbers coincided with the introduction of the american model of personal loans for education and ever increasing fees.
jakobegger 11y ago
Comparing the number of "graduates" is pretty much pointless. We always had a low number of graduates in Austria, partly because of the apprenticeship system, but also because many schools just didn't award degrees. For example, if you become a Kindergarten teacher, or a primary school teacher, or a nurse, you just dodn't receive an academic degree. A few years ago this started to change. Most schools were formally changed to "Hochschulen" and now award degrees. On paper, this measure vastly increases the number of academics in Austria. But in practice, not much has changed. Such circumstances should be taken into account when comparing the percentage of graduates across countries. The raw numbers don't tell the whole story.
deleted 11y ago
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TurboHaskal 11y ago
I might have the wrong picture, but apparently here in Germany teachers and parents decide at a short age which of the three education and career paths their kid is to follow depending on how dumb / smart he is. You can apparently switch tracks later on, but at a greater cost in time and effort, and the stigma and consequences of this will affect you during your whole professional life. As a late bloomer myself I find it sickening that I'm contributing to such system with my taxes.

150 points by HarryHirsch 11y ago

k__ 11y ago

Sadly I studied in the 4 years, which had these fees. Paid about 3500€, but made enouh money to get rid of them in the first year after I got my degree.

rb2k_ 11y ago
Same here, even got one of the last years of the draft :) In the end, the money I paid is barely anything compared to the salary it resulted in. Especially considering that I was able to get BAföG which basically paid for itself in the end.

morb 11y ago

One Finnish student describes his experiences with the German education system: http://www.zeit.de/studium/hochschule/2015-08/study-abroad-germany http://www.zeit.de/studium/hochschule/2015-08/study-abroad-g...

lorenzhs 11y ago
Having studied in Germany, I have a few quibbles with that article. On 1: teachers not uploading material is hardly a systemic issue. Not all academics are great teachers, that is true. But complaining about having to take notes seems a bit whiny to me. On 2: whether you spend the semester learning and then have a quick recap before the exam, or whether you spend it goofing off and then quickly memorize everything until the end of the exam is your choice, and your responsibility. If you need constant motivation to keep working, that is not the universities problem. You have to work on that yourself. 3. I have never taken such an exam, but the exams described here are just terrible. I assume this is related to point 1. 4. I've only ever had one card at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, for the library, the cantina, building access, printing credit, admin stuff, and student ID. As the author noted, this is being changed in Cologne too, so I'm not sure what's the point except a good rant. 5. No argument here. Administration seems to be universally terrible. 6. This is Point 1 again. 7. Wtf, Cologne? 8. Duplicate of #5. I'm not claiming that everything is roses in Germany, but some of the author's points are about individual teachers or issues at the University of Cologne, and do not do the title justice.
- endzone 11y ago
  it's not a problem specific to germany, but he makes a legitimate criticism of the classic lecture format. it is an antiquated mode of delivery, an extremely poor use of students' time, and really should not be part of university education any longer. i suppose it is one way of limiting cost...
  - collyw 11y ago
    What do you see as being better alternatives? I am not saying they are not there, but compared to online course for example, I think pyscially attending lectures gives more incentive to learn having invested the effort to actually turn up. What do other people think?
    - jlg23 11y ago
      > What do you see as being better alternatives? Online lectures. Uploaded scripts. (At least in my university good scripts were followed so closely, that a "lecture" was exactly what the name says "somebody reading the script". And bad lectures were an utter waste of time. I remember one math prof who permanently corrected his proofs back and forth - in the end we just took photos of his blackboard "art" (back in 2000), because taking notes was absolutely pointless.) With modern technology those could be annotated; students could have online discussions about those (think "soundcloud-style interface"). Everyone could benefit from those, not only students. Can I please live in a world where I can do every course from home, at my own pace? I'd happily pay to have my all tests evaluated and finally for time spent by university employees on my exams - for which I'd sign up whenever I am ready and without formally being enrolled as a student. > I think pyscially attending lectures gives more incentive to learn Or it allows for less time to learn. In my university the different institutes are distributed across the whole city and I spent 12 hours every week just on commutes between those. Thus, people who need to work for paying for their studies (not tuition, but rent, food, transportation) are already excluded by being forced to physically attend. Same for people who already have a job. I am not talking about those few who can study while working because their employer supports this, I'm talking about the carpenter with an interest in theoretical physics, astronomy or arts.
HarryHirsch 11y ago
Point # 2, the complaint that grades are based on one exam at the end of the course is actually a feature. At my lovely State College I'm teaching a course with weekly graded lab reports. You grade the blasted things because each of them counts towards the final grade, but there is no time to review or critique them. From the shape of what the kids hand in, they need much guidance and critiquing, and we are failing them by not giving it. They are clearly incapable of independent study at this stage.
- endzone 11y ago
  indeed. people like to imagine an idealised world of highly able, motivated and disciplined students. why design an education system for a set of students that doesn't really exist?

lorenzhs 11y ago

I think the article is very quick to dismiss the difference in number of graduates between Germany and the UK (27 vs 48%, was it?). Why do half of young Brits get a University degree, while only a quarter of young Germans do? One part of the answer is of course the German school system, which only permits students who attended a "Gymnasium" (grammar school) to attend university, but that applies to roughly half of all students [1]. Since schools are tiered by academic ability, it would be safe to assume that those wishing to pursue higher education would attend a Gymnasium, so we're nearly back to square one. Statistics [1] also show that in Germany 43% started a university education, but only 28% completed one. Meanwhile, UK universities boast with their high retention rates, which might raise the question of how they achieve this without compromising the quality of the degrees. (My experience in the UK was that just about anyone got a degree, and a third (that's a grade, not a fraction) is basically worthless) All this, I think, leads to two points. First, a lot of jobs in the UK require a degree, although it is not clear to me why. Secondly, while German universities might not be as present at the very top, the baseline seems to be a lot higher than in the UK (several factors play into this, among them the ability to switch subjects (due to lack of fees and very little social stigma) and not caring about retention rates, i.e. letting bad students fail), which is probably while the German diploma was so highly regarded. (Another major difference I noticed was that in German universities, nobody checks up on you, and you are expected to take responsibility as an adult, whereas in England, it felt like the University was trying to be my Mummy.) Lastly, the omnipresent reminder: foreigners don't pay tuition in Germany, either. There is a language barrier, but I probably don't need to point out all the articles which were here on HN not so long ago about increasing numbers of US and British students in Germany. [1] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiturientenquote_und_Studienanfängerquote#Studienberechtigte https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiturientenquote_und_Studie...

wuschel 11y ago
Good point, but I would like to compare the entire educational/job training spectrum. In Germany, many people decide to go for an apprenticeship or a position in the dual educational system [1], even if they qualify for the university path with the matura. These are not counted as university students. I agree on the remark on baseline quality of university. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_education_system

lumberjack 11y ago

There are less prospective university applicants in Germany because of their tiered and somewhat controversial secondary education system. It does not have anything to do with tuition fees. As for tuition fees, you can make a completely tax funded third level education system work. Developing countries do it all the time, successfully. You do this by restricting entrance to the brightest through a harsh selection process. The problem with this is that in the long run you end up with a large percentage of the population who has only minimal education. People might sneer at somebody with a degree in English Literature but it does make a difference to live in a country where the majority have some tertiary level education experience, if only because they appreciate education more and can instil that sort of appreciation in their kids.

lispm 11y ago
Well skilled people in Germany are found in many professions. In the UK less so. For example apprenticeships are not widely supported as in Germany. Go to Siemens, these people will work with the latest machines, materials and processes. They will get a dual education: work and school. If they want they can make their 'Meister' and go to the University: http://www.hochschulkompass.de/studium/suche/studieren-ohne-abitur.html http://www.hochschulkompass.de/studium/suche/studieren-ohne-... That there has to be ways for people to go to University who have not been at a Gymnasium, this idea is not unknown in Germany. ;-)
- solistice 11y ago
  Especially since students from a Hauptschule can do their 10th grade and students from a Realschule can get into the Gymnasiale Oberstufe as well as people being aged out of those options being able to do their Abitur at a later time.
endzone 11y ago
i would contend it makes very little difference because of the naturally limited fraction of the population with the ability to benefit from post secondary education.
Mithaldu 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

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lordnacho 11y ago

My experience of the UK and Germanic systems: In the UK, you can do any degree and people will still hire you for a graduate job. Something like a bank or a consultancy won't care whether you did Engineering or Classics. They might care more which university you attended. The idea seems to be that anyone fairly smart can do anything. In the Germanic world (Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia) doing a degree is choosing a life path. You're an Electronic Engineer? Great, you can apply for jobs in EE. Nobody else can. And you'll have a hard time doing something else, relative to the British EE student. There's a real belief that studying something somehow makes you competent at a job. Neither of these views is entirely true, of course. Your Classicist will find it harder than your CS guy to write good OO code. Your German EE guy may well find himself getting by on soft skills. What does this mean with regard to tuition fees? I suppose the Germanic system requires a certain number of graduates in various sectors, and employers would feel justified in complaining if society does not push out a sensible number of engineers. Likewise, you will hear the occasional voice in the public debate about too many people being allowed to do courses with no specific purpose. Since society is paying for this, everyone who can write to a newspaper has a voice in what young people get up to. As a young person, you really need to be on the academic path quite early to beat the selection system. In the UK, where having a degree is a sort of entry pass to the middle class, the debate is more about fairness than economic goals. If you make it expensive, poor kids have a hard time getting those nice desk jobs that allow you to buy a house and car. On the other hand, it's individual whether you want to take out a loan, a risk that's up to each 18 year old. If you want to climb the ladder, you can pay up and give it a shot. So there's a big question of what university is for. Is it so that society can fill out certain jobs? Or is it a vehicle for individual advancement? Of course it's a bit of both, but there are legitimate arguments for higher or lower fees, and pros and cons on both sides.

dingaling 11y ago
> Your Classicist will find it harder than your CS guy to write good OO code True but in my US & UK corporate experience we found that someone with a humanities degree and a Masters or Diploma in CS was by far the best hire for any technology position that had end-user exposure. A mixture of analytical, deductive and soft-skills that the inverse combination never seemed to match. Perhaps found it harder to write good ( smart or super-efficient ) OO code but could usually write decent code to better-researched and specified requirements.

legulere 11y ago

One reason why there are so few people studying in Germany is that we still have a really big apprenticeship system where in other countries most people go to university for (nurses, preschool teachers, there's even an application developer's apprenticeship). One reason why Germany can allow itself to have no fees is the language barrier. Sweden offers lots of English master programmes and has introduced fees for non-EU citizens (EU citizens have to be treated the same as own citizens in this regard under EU law ). The Netherlands and Austria already complain about the masses of German students flocking to them. I guess there's some anxiety that there would be a storm of foreign students at British universities if fees were dropped.

mafribe 11y ago
there's some anxiety that there would be a storm of foreign students at British universities if fees were dropped. The UK used to have a system where foreign (= non-EU) students pay significantly more than home-students.
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  The EU has a population of half a billion people, even if UK/EU fees were dropped and all non-EU fees stayed very high, his point still stands, you'd probably see a ton of European students flock to the UK. And seeing as there's nothing you're allowed to do to prevent discrimination between EU members, they just decided for the UK to be more expensive than everyone else. This keeps UK schools relatively british and generates a ton of money on the comparatively fewer foreigners who still decide to make the trip. It also filters out a lot of the 'bottom socioeconomic class', and that lack of social mobility for them will probably create tons of inequality and friction later down the line. Some of the rates at UK schools are absolutely insane for European standards.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  Used to? It still does. Consider my university, for example. For the academic year 2015/2016 it will charge £13,000/yr. to international students, versus £9,000/yr. to UK students: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/infohub/finance/tuition-fee-rates-201516-667.php http://www.abdn.ac.uk/infohub/finance/tuition-fee-rates-2015...

dghughes 11y ago

Eliminating tuition fees depends on the benefit to the region. In my little province for as long as I can recall there have always been complaints about the cost of tuition and any fees at the University. It's a small University with a mix of local students, regional (within ~400km), some from the northeastern US and others from outside US/Canada (China in particular). Eliminating any fees just means the student gets a break then as always when they are done with school immediately leaves the province for a job elsewhere. That's zero benefit to the taxpayers who would cover the cost.

wirrbel 11y ago
This is a problem, even more so if you have regions with and without tuition. If provinces have the same tuition rates, there is not much damage done, because your province will receive employees from other provinces. I have been to Canada for an exchange semester and it was an astonishing experience to me in regards to tuition. Most students I talked with where in favor of tuition fees (although they hit them quite a bit financially). In general, they were quite willing to spend a considerable amount of money on top of tuition for university related things. 3 books $200 each on the syllabus for a lecture that is not borrow-able in the university library? Not an issue, people just bought them (I actually bought one book via German amazon in its translation, because it was ~50 EUR there and ~200$ in Canada, so I saved considerably even when including shipping costs). In Germany, Professors often offer their lecture notes (often book grade layed out with latex) as free downloads. In Germany I have lived in a dorm and had roommates that would probably not have studied with tuition as high as in Germany (back then my home state had a EUR 1200 a year tuition, a measure that was in place for roughly 5 years I think and quickly repealed because it was enormously unpopular). Knowing that education is sponsored by the state makes me much more willing in paying my taxes, now that I actually earn a living. In the 19th century, lecturers apparently collected tuition upon entrance at the door of the lecture hall. Dunno if this might be a model for tuition to compromise on. Only pay for the services you take. Looking at American tuition fees, I sometimes wonder why students would not just pay for private tutors...

tim333 11y ago

The UK had no tuition fees when I went to university in 1983. They even gave you a couple of grand for living costs if you were hard up. The trouble was that university education was only available for about 15% of the population, basically sorted by exam results so if you didn't make that you were kind of screwed. Now it's like 47% go to university. Neither system was/is perfect.

jostmey 11y ago

Can anyone no matter what their grades move onto college? If not, then the German system is extremely unfair. People unable to attend college end up partially subsidizing those who can. Can someone clarify how higher education works in Germany?

rb2k_ 11y ago
You can't easily attend university unless you went to the "Gymnasium". There are ways for those who didn't, but it's a lot harder. > People unable to attend college end up partially subsidizing those who can. How? The people that did attend college will more taxes over their lifetime, so you could argue that the college people are subsidising the other college people.
- walshemj 11y ago
  And the ones who didn't get to go to the Gymnasium -> University route will hit a ceiling and be unable to progress beyond a certain point.

allendoerfer 11y ago

>Can the German university system afford to expand and produce more graduates under the current taxpayer-funded "free" model? It does not need to. Germany has a world-class apprenticeship system. Why would we want to copy the English/American system, when our society is built on different foundations. I remember the times when Germany was laughed at for its big industrial sector and was urged to move into (financial) services like the UK did. One financial crisis later the German way all of a sudden is the way to go. So for gods sake, do not change a running system. I would argue that someone, who has a Meister [0] (confusing, because we have the Master instead of the Diplom now, too) has much better career prospects than someone who has studied "something with media" as we call it here, just because he or she did not know what to do. We lately came up with something new, called Duales Studium, where you work at a company while you are studying at a special school that grants Bachelors, similar to the apprenticeship system. The model is quite popular, but I am not sure if it increases the number of higher education degrees or if their students would have studied at universities of applied science anyway. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_craftsman#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_craftsman#Germany

irremediable 11y ago
Very well said. I think it's stupid for the UK to push more people into taking university degrees. IMO we've already devalued a lot of degrees by doing so. Apprenticeships make far more sense for many things.
liamzebedee 11y ago
> where you work at a company while you are studying at a special school that grants Bachelors For reference, I think the English equivalent is a co-operative degree.
inflagranti 11y ago
Some anecdotal evidence in support of this claim that such craftsman title might give you better prospects than certain university degrees: A friend of mine learned mill-working directly after secondary education in Switzerland an apprentice system very similar to the German one. He had no problem finding a job after this and could even easily move abroad where he now works as an independent contractor. On the other hand, I know quite a few people with university degrees that had a hard time to find a job in their area and definitely would have an even harder time getting a visa abroad in a saturated market. This might of course be rather coincidental, but I know that in general craftsmanship titles like the German Meister or the Swiss Diploma are highly recognised internationally, and it's well known that Germany and Switzerland do a lot of high quality engineering, which I would attribute in a large part to this education system.

rb2k_ 11y ago

Another interesting part of the equation is BAföG. From Wikipedia: > The Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz (mostly known as BAföG, its abbreviation) is the Federal Training Assistance Act for students at secondary schools and universities in Germany. The law, which regulates student loans in the country, is often referred to by students who simply say they receive "BAföG". Especially if a student's parents aren't well off, there's a good chance he/she can get a 0% loan from the government (and 50% of that loan is given as a gift).

solistice 11y ago
Also BAFöG does not need to be paid back for 5 years after graduation, with a years worth of extension if the student cannot affort the associated costs when requested.
- Dinoso 11y ago
  There is even a discount if you pay back the full amount of money. I think it was around 25% but I'm not sure.
  - rb2k_ 11y ago
    And another one if you are in the top x% of your study

SagelyGuru 11y ago

The article is written from an English perspective. It does follow very closely the usual worn out consensus of recent decades that it is mandatory to further increase the numbers of graduates, despite their growing personal indebtedness. Apparently, according to the author, this is all justified by the fact that graduates have lower unemployment rates than non-graduates. I think it is time to start questioning this dogma. It is the more able half of the population that is typically selected for entrance by the UK universities (and so it should be). Surely, it would be very surprising indeed, if they were not also the more employable half, regardless of whether they study or not? The content of their studies is increasingly irrelevant anyway, as is confirmed by the fact that "more than half of graduates are overqualified for their jobs". That means they are the more able people competing for the same old unqualified jobs and so, of course, they win. In these circumstances, the "studies" of ever increasing proportion of population are nothing more than a way of transferring more of their future incomes to the bankers. It is an interesting "coincidence" that the drive for expansion of student numbers coincided with the introduction of the american model of personal loans for education and ever increasing fees.

jakobegger 11y ago

Comparing the number of "graduates" is pretty much pointless. We always had a low number of graduates in Austria, partly because of the apprenticeship system, but also because many schools just didn't award degrees. For example, if you become a Kindergarten teacher, or a primary school teacher, or a nurse, you just dodn't receive an academic degree. A few years ago this started to change. Most schools were formally changed to "Hochschulen" and now award degrees. On paper, this measure vastly increases the number of academics in Austria. But in practice, not much has changed. Such circumstances should be taken into account when comparing the percentage of graduates across countries. The raw numbers don't tell the whole story.

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TurboHaskal 11y ago

I might have the wrong picture, but apparently here in Germany teachers and parents decide at a short age which of the three education and career paths their kid is to follow depending on how dumb / smart he is. You can apparently switch tracks later on, but at a greater cost in time and effort, and the stigma and consequences of this will affect you during your whole professional life. As a late bloomer myself I find it sickening that I'm contributing to such system with my taxes.