5 ms·

In Denmark everyone can get scholarships to pay for their entire education. That and they get a stipend for living expenses. Everyone gets this, young or old, r

In Denmark everyone can get scholarships to pay for their entire education. That and they get a stipend for living expenses. Everyone gets this, young or old, rich or poor.

zelos 9y ago
How do taxes work out in Denmark? I tried to work out how it would compare to the UK, but it seems significantly more complex to work out. I _think_ an average programmer on £50-60k would end up paying about 35-40% of their income in tax? Or have I completely miscalculated? Compared to about 30% in the UK
- martin_bech 9y ago
  Its somewhat complicated, but you pay 8% off the bat as "Arbejdsmarkedsbidrag", then you have a lot of deductions and pay about 40% on the rest. All in all I would wager that my effective tax rate comes to just under 40%, but your milleage will vary.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  It's muddied slightly in the UK because of Employer NI, if you include that it gets a little higher.
zxcmx 9y ago
Yeah but I bet your sports facilities are nowhere near as good, and the admin departments are way understaffed /s
- majewsky 9y ago
  I never understood why universities need competitive sports facilities in the first place (except when it's required for the curriculum, e.g. where sports medicine is offered). I suppose it's something to do either with tradition ("our sports team has been the best for over a century") or income from sponsorship and merch sales, but not sure.
  - ctw 9y ago
    This is just one example, but my university recently revamped their football stadium due to a huge donation from an either an alumni or coach (I can't remember exactly) who donated specifically for this cause. If money comes from a donation, sometimes it's not the school's decision how money should be spent.
WillPostForFood 9y ago
It gets more complicated in a non homogenous country with 56 times the population. But for sure, Denmark is a nice, well run country.
- flukus 9y ago
  > It gets more complicated in a non homogenous country with 56 times the population. It's also divided into 51 smaller, more localized governments.
  - WillPostForFood 9y ago
    If it was all delegated to them, it might work. But what you have instead is 50 secondary layers of bureaucracy, while the Federal govt holds firm control of the student loan market, and imposes control and regulation on colleges, using both carrot (R&D money) and stick (loans).
- sangnoir 9y ago
  > It gets more complicated in a non homogenous country Can you please give me a simple, non-racist explanation why this matters? Please explicitly spell-out what is/is not homogeneous (I always assume race), and explain why that complicates things.
  - muninn_ 9y ago
    Well I can: it's a lot easier to get things done when everybody agrees on doing it. People with a shared culture are more likely to agree on things.
  - roenxi 9y ago
    Here is an argument for your consideration: Consider the concept of a business cluster, note that the city as a cluster is a reasonable idea [1]. Note that the population of Denmark does not break top 30 in a list of global cities [2]. Conclude that the country of Denmark, with its small geographic and demographic attributes, could specialise entirely in one high-margin economic area and further specialise their laws and social systems to that. Basically, 5 million people can be sustained by the excess wealth of a strong local cluster. 50 million people cannot be sustained by one strong cluster, and the different clusters may have different needs. I have no idea about Denmark, but if they /are/ clustered as a country around some high-tech industry, maybe the economically rational equilibrium to give out scholarships to support the local cluster? Maybe they are just nice people? A country with many clusters needs a one-size-fits-all legal and social system that works with all the clusters. The economic equilibriums may be different to a single cluster. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cluster#By_type_of_comparative_advantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cluster#By_type_of_co... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities
nojvek 9y ago
In a lot of other countries education is a lot cheaper US has become a country where profit runs everything. What happens when a large percentage of youth don't get education and make enough to buy a house?
- rmah 9y ago
  What happens is that housing prices fall until enough people can afford them.
- pascalxus 9y ago
  thats partly because education consumers (students) keep demanding education to cost so much. If everyone applied to and went to the cheapest colleges they could find, universities would be clamoring to reduce their costs, not increase them. of course, a big part of the problem is employers. Employers place a large value on Ivy league schools and expensive universities, thus creating the consumer demand in the first place.

In Denmark everyone can get scholarships to pay for their entire education. That and they get a stipend for living expenses. Everyone gets this, young or old, rich or poor.

zelos 9y ago

How do taxes work out in Denmark? I tried to work out how it would compare to the UK, but it seems significantly more complex to work out. I _think_ an average programmer on £50-60k would end up paying about 35-40% of their income in tax? Or have I completely miscalculated? Compared to about 30% in the UK

martin_bech 9y ago
Its somewhat complicated, but you pay 8% off the bat as "Arbejdsmarkedsbidrag", then you have a lot of deductions and pay about 40% on the rest. All in all I would wager that my effective tax rate comes to just under 40%, but your milleage will vary.
tonyedgecombe 9y ago
It's muddied slightly in the UK because of Employer NI, if you include that it gets a little higher.

zxcmx 9y ago

Yeah but I bet your sports facilities are nowhere near as good, and the admin departments are way understaffed /s

majewsky 9y ago
I never understood why universities need competitive sports facilities in the first place (except when it's required for the curriculum, e.g. where sports medicine is offered). I suppose it's something to do either with tradition ("our sports team has been the best for over a century") or income from sponsorship and merch sales, but not sure.
- ctw 9y ago
  This is just one example, but my university recently revamped their football stadium due to a huge donation from an either an alumni or coach (I can't remember exactly) who donated specifically for this cause. If money comes from a donation, sometimes it's not the school's decision how money should be spent.

WillPostForFood 9y ago

It gets more complicated in a non homogenous country with 56 times the population. But for sure, Denmark is a nice, well run country.

flukus 9y ago
> It gets more complicated in a non homogenous country with 56 times the population. It's also divided into 51 smaller, more localized governments.
- WillPostForFood 9y ago
  If it was all delegated to them, it might work. But what you have instead is 50 secondary layers of bureaucracy, while the Federal govt holds firm control of the student loan market, and imposes control and regulation on colleges, using both carrot (R&D money) and stick (loans).
sangnoir 9y ago
> It gets more complicated in a non homogenous country Can you please give me a simple, non-racist explanation why this matters? Please explicitly spell-out what is/is not homogeneous (I always assume race), and explain why that complicates things.
- muninn_ 9y ago
  Well I can: it's a lot easier to get things done when everybody agrees on doing it. People with a shared culture are more likely to agree on things.
- roenxi 9y ago
  Here is an argument for your consideration: Consider the concept of a business cluster, note that the city as a cluster is a reasonable idea [1]. Note that the population of Denmark does not break top 30 in a list of global cities [2]. Conclude that the country of Denmark, with its small geographic and demographic attributes, could specialise entirely in one high-margin economic area and further specialise their laws and social systems to that. Basically, 5 million people can be sustained by the excess wealth of a strong local cluster. 50 million people cannot be sustained by one strong cluster, and the different clusters may have different needs. I have no idea about Denmark, but if they /are/ clustered as a country around some high-tech industry, maybe the economically rational equilibrium to give out scholarships to support the local cluster? Maybe they are just nice people? A country with many clusters needs a one-size-fits-all legal and social system that works with all the clusters. The economic equilibriums may be different to a single cluster. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cluster#By_type_of_comparative_advantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cluster#By_type_of_co... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities

nojvek 9y ago

In a lot of other countries education is a lot cheaper US has become a country where profit runs everything. What happens when a large percentage of youth don't get education and make enough to buy a house?

rmah 9y ago
What happens is that housing prices fall until enough people can afford them.
pascalxus 9y ago
thats partly because education consumers (students) keep demanding education to cost so much. If everyone applied to and went to the cheapest colleges they could find, universities would be clamoring to reduce their costs, not increase them. of course, a big part of the problem is employers. Employers place a large value on Ivy league schools and expensive universities, thus creating the consumer demand in the first place.