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It actually doesn't work that great in Germany. The college dropout rate is about 28% (https://researchgate.net/publication/267340378_Student_Drop-out_from_Germ

It actually doesn't work that great in Germany. The college dropout rate is about 28% (https://researchgate.net/publication/267340378_Student_Drop-out_from_German_Higher_Education_Institutions https://researchgate.net/publication/267340378_Student_Drop-...). The Hauptschule and Realschule routes seem much better designed than the US, but in terms of predicting who is suitable for college Germany isn't doing a very good job.

notch656a 5y ago
28% is much lower than the ~37% failure rate to graduate in 6 years in US. In somewhere like Iran you may see very high graduation rates in part because you may need to be selected as best student (a former employer I interviewed with, the owner got into college because he was best math student in a class of something like 1000 children.) Dropout rate because of failure to adapt, of course, would be a good thing. Those who aren't fit for a career in engineering for instance were rapidly ejected into a different program from my public college I went to (like 25+% ejected first year, memory says it was more like 50%), which meant very few people wasted lots of money on a dead career path.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehran_Farzanegan_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehran_Farzanegan_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allameh_Helli_High_Schools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allameh_Helli_High_Schools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Organization_for_Development_of_Exceptional_Talents#Famous_NODET_High_schools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Organization_for_Deve...
- muffinman26 5y ago
  The point of the split for Gymnasium is supposed to be to only admit those students who would successfully adapt, though. Attending college also requires passing the Abitur, which shows skill in the areas you are planning to study. A failure to understand engineering topics should show up in the topics chosen for the Abitur. (Similar to the choice of A level topics in the UK.) Somewhat relatedly, college in Germany is more focused on the theoretical than it is in the US. A lot of engineering college programs in the US would be closer to a German technical school than a German college.
  - notch656a 5y ago
    I understand. I worry that the more you lower the false positive (accepted to college but uncapable), the greater you raise the false negative (denied college path but capable). I very much appreciated the way my public college worked. Very few who started electrical engineering finished. But they would accept damn near anyone. The few that survived had the world in their pocket. >A lot of engineering college programs in the US would be closer to a German technical school than a German college. Must depend on the college. My experience, as well as most my peers, was that engineering was about 60% raw mathematics. There was so much math, I only use a small fraction of it today. Maybe 10% of the engineering degree was practical labs. The engineering technology programs are maybe what you're thinking of? They flip those numbers on their head. It's hard for me to imagine any 4 year degree except mathematics and physics having more math than engineering programs I'm familiar with.
    - muffinman26 5y ago
      > I worry that the more you lower the false positive (accepted to college but uncapable), the greater you raise the false negative (denied college path but capable). Sure, but if you're trying to avoid false negatives the German system is already poor. In the US work is the goal and there's a lot of talk about finding a job you love. The German system is mainly focused on minimizing the number of people who can't find work. In Germany there's also less of an income gap between professions than in the US (a German doctor or highly paid computer scientist only makes 2x what a tradesperson or retail worker makes https://www.iamexpat.de/career/working-in-germany/salary-payslip-german-minimum-wage https://www.iamexpat.de/career/working-in-germany/salary-pay...). > My experience, as well as most my peers, was that engineering was about 60% raw mathematics. Was the mathematics mainly proofs? My US university required a minimum of 2 classes with a significant programming project for a Computer Science degree, and many students took 6 or more courses with significant programming projects. My semester studying abroad in Germany, there was only 1 course offered that even had a serious project component. There was a heavy focus on proofs, and all the hardware architecture courses offered were entirely structured around formal verification of hardware.
      - 5y ago
- Siira 5y ago
  Iran uses comprehensive standardized exams to sort university admissions (the population of the test takers vary between 100k and 600k), but pretty much anyone with a STEM high-school degree can get admitted to some university. The worst universities are for-profits (still pretty cheap though, except a few very good programs in state universities that admit a few people by money), and they basically give you a degree for giving them your money and showing up on classes. Since the universities get a more homogeneous level of talent, the standards they set is compatible with what most of their students can achieve, hence the high graduation rates. Another factor is that people take life more seriously in Iran (based on my very limited data on non-urban Iranians, and the US). There is virtually no social bubble that does not think degrees are important. “Engineer” is used as a general title of prestige, used as an umbrella term for anyone rich who is not a medical doctor.

notch656a 5y ago

28% is much lower than the ~37% failure rate to graduate in 6 years in US. In somewhere like Iran you may see very high graduation rates in part because you may need to be selected as best student (a former employer I interviewed with, the owner got into college because he was best math student in a class of something like 1000 children.) Dropout rate because of failure to adapt, of course, would be a good thing. Those who aren't fit for a career in engineering for instance were rapidly ejected into a different program from my public college I went to (like 25+% ejected first year, memory says it was more like 50%), which meant very few people wasted lots of money on a dead career path.

selimthegrim 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehran_Farzanegan_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehran_Farzanegan_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allameh_Helli_High_Schools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allameh_Helli_High_Schools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Organization_for_Development_of_Exceptional_Talents#Famous_NODET_High_schools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Organization_for_Deve...
muffinman26 5y ago
The point of the split for Gymnasium is supposed to be to only admit those students who would successfully adapt, though. Attending college also requires passing the Abitur, which shows skill in the areas you are planning to study. A failure to understand engineering topics should show up in the topics chosen for the Abitur. (Similar to the choice of A level topics in the UK.) Somewhat relatedly, college in Germany is more focused on the theoretical than it is in the US. A lot of engineering college programs in the US would be closer to a German technical school than a German college.
- notch656a 5y ago
  I understand. I worry that the more you lower the false positive (accepted to college but uncapable), the greater you raise the false negative (denied college path but capable). I very much appreciated the way my public college worked. Very few who started electrical engineering finished. But they would accept damn near anyone. The few that survived had the world in their pocket. >A lot of engineering college programs in the US would be closer to a German technical school than a German college. Must depend on the college. My experience, as well as most my peers, was that engineering was about 60% raw mathematics. There was so much math, I only use a small fraction of it today. Maybe 10% of the engineering degree was practical labs. The engineering technology programs are maybe what you're thinking of? They flip those numbers on their head. It's hard for me to imagine any 4 year degree except mathematics and physics having more math than engineering programs I'm familiar with.
  - muffinman26 5y ago
    > I worry that the more you lower the false positive (accepted to college but uncapable), the greater you raise the false negative (denied college path but capable). Sure, but if you're trying to avoid false negatives the German system is already poor. In the US work is the goal and there's a lot of talk about finding a job you love. The German system is mainly focused on minimizing the number of people who can't find work. In Germany there's also less of an income gap between professions than in the US (a German doctor or highly paid computer scientist only makes 2x what a tradesperson or retail worker makes https://www.iamexpat.de/career/working-in-germany/salary-payslip-german-minimum-wage https://www.iamexpat.de/career/working-in-germany/salary-pay...). > My experience, as well as most my peers, was that engineering was about 60% raw mathematics. Was the mathematics mainly proofs? My US university required a minimum of 2 classes with a significant programming project for a Computer Science degree, and many students took 6 or more courses with significant programming projects. My semester studying abroad in Germany, there was only 1 course offered that even had a serious project component. There was a heavy focus on proofs, and all the hardware architecture courses offered were entirely structured around formal verification of hardware.
    - 5y ago
Siira 5y ago
Iran uses comprehensive standardized exams to sort university admissions (the population of the test takers vary between 100k and 600k), but pretty much anyone with a STEM high-school degree can get admitted to some university. The worst universities are for-profits (still pretty cheap though, except a few very good programs in state universities that admit a few people by money), and they basically give you a degree for giving them your money and showing up on classes. Since the universities get a more homogeneous level of talent, the standards they set is compatible with what most of their students can achieve, hence the high graduation rates. Another factor is that people take life more seriously in Iran (based on my very limited data on non-urban Iranians, and the US). There is virtually no social bubble that does not think degrees are important. “Engineer” is used as a general title of prestige, used as an umbrella term for anyone rich who is not a medical doctor.