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As a non-american (from South America) who lived in both USA an Europe: Yes, in USA you get much more money, like you said 2x~5x, but then: University is expe

As a non-american (from South America) who lived in both USA an Europe: Yes, in USA you get much more money, like you said 2x~5x, but then: University is expensive as fck. Health care is expensive as fck. You have 5 days of paid sick leave per year in most companies. You have 10 days of paid holidays per year in most companies. In contrast, in Europe: University was cheap or free. Healthcare is cheap and universal. If you are sick you are sick, either the company or the health insurance pay. You have between 20 and 30 days of paid holidays. This is why quality of life in Europe, is so superior. And again, I am saying this as a non-European.

arwhatever 1y ago
Perennial “What Armenians should know about life in America (2014)” from days of HN past https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22777745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22777745 And which today must be read via internet archive https://web.archive.org/web/20200404172130/https://likewise.am/2014/12/26/what-armenians-should-know-about-life-in-america/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200404172130/https://likewise.... Basically explaining to Armenians at home why their relatives who moved to America don’t send better remittances back home despite their $X pay rate. Here’s why …
selfmodruntime 1y ago
> University was cheap or free Ha! I wish. It's not free. You will pay the same that Americans pay for Uni over your life many times over since tax rates in the EU are really high. Healthcare isn't exactly cheap either. And everything you wrote is just the result of decades of prosperity that are now coming to an end. This will be a shock for many.
stronglikedan 1y ago
> This is why quality of life in Europe, is so superior. That's very subjective, and I would rather have my freedoms instead of your/their liberties, thanks!
- vecinu 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 1y ago
    [flagged]
- LastTrain 1y ago
  The only major differences I can think of are gun ownership and abortion. What freedoms were you referring to?
  - bfg_9k 1y ago
    Speech?
    - LastTrain 1y ago
      Can you be more specific? What sort of thing could you say in the US that would cause government action if you said it in Canada? Those freedoms are fading fast under this administration at any rate.
georgeecollins 1y ago
If this were true, the number of Americans I have known who moved to Europe would be roughly equal to the number of Europeans I have known who have moved to the US. That's not data, that's anecdote. But what is the European country where more people go there from the US than come to the US from there?
- no_wizard 1y ago
  The two things are not equals. The US has for a western country, relaxed standards for immigration[0], in particular if you were coming from Europe, it's quite a bit easier to establish residency here. The reverse is not true. European nations aren't very immigration friendly by comparison. On top of that, the US government, assuming you keep your citizenship, does not make it easy to live abroad. US government tax policy for citizens who live overseas is much more aggressive than any other western country, from what I understand. Combined with the fact its alot harder to go the other way, and the US government does a fair amount to discourage it, I'm not shocked more US citizens aren't moving to Europe. [0]: At least before Trump returned to office, I'm unsure how much of this has changed.
  - georgeecollins 1y ago
    That's a fair point. But until recently you could move to a lot of countries in Europe for an investment less than a house in California. But I accept that could be the true reason.
    - no_wizard 1y ago
      >That's a fair point. But until recently you could move to a lot of countries in Europe for an investment less than a house in California. That alone is enough to put most people out of grasp of doing this, for a multitude of reasons, of which not having the capital is only part of the equation, as you would also need to have a suitable investment on the other side to put said money, not a promise. I'm sure there are other nuances involved too. Thats before the fact that the cost of a house in California would price most people out of the equation to begin with.
BobbyTables2 1y ago
In tech, 3-4 weeks vacation not usual for senior roles. Often “unlimited” but in practice far more than 10 days. That might be for new/inexperienced hires in crappy companies.
- stephen_g 1y ago
  For comparison, 4 weeks is the absolute minimum for any full-time worker here in Australia, and that’s less than people in the UK/Europe get.
  - BobbyTables2 1y ago
    Wow, sounds nice. Started at 2 Weeks at beginning of career. Had even a bit less due to 3-5 days of mandatory shutdowns during Christmas time.
uyzstvqs 1y ago
It's evident that you're saying this as a non-European, as there's no "European healthcare". Many (most?) European countries have private healthcare systems. Switzerland has it and offers some of the best healthcare in Europe and in the world. Similar systems work great in many other European countries as well. The problems with American healthcare are not because it's market-based, it's because how that market is managed. Some other countries have public universal healthcare. It can work well, but it requires a high-income country with both wealth in abundance and significant government efficiency. It only truly works well in Scandinavia so far. This is not "socialist healthcare" as some will dubiously claim, it's sort of the opposite, which is why it works.
CivBase 1y ago
> University is expensive as fck. Health care is expensive as fck. University isn't near as big of a problem. That's not something the blindsides you like health care expenses. Nobody is making you spend $300k on university. Got my engineering degree at a public university for ~$100k in total and had it paid off 5 years after graduation. But a $195k hospital bill is something I'd never be prepared for. Nobody chooses to go to a hospital.
- tsimionescu 1y ago
  For $100k, you could pay the tuition fees for 4-10 (depending on exact school choice) of the best universities in Europe outside the UK combined - and I'm talking of the foreign student fees, not the much lower tuitions that EU citizens get.
  - CivBase 1y ago
    That's great, but you've missed my point. I get payed more in the US, so I can afford the extra cost for university. And once that university bill is paid, I can pocket the extra. There are still reasons why high university costs can be a problem. Teachers, for example, don't get paid near enough to be able to cover university costs in a few years like I was able to. But becoming a teacher requires just as much investment. But even then, the cost of college loans is far more manageable for even teachers than an unexpected $195k visit to the hospital. University cost is a problem in the US, but I don't think it's comparable to the problem we have with health care costs.
    - tsimionescu 1y ago
      That's true for a handful of jobs, but not so much in general. Sure, in CS and medicine and Wall Street you get salaries that are huge compared to typical EU salaries. But this doesn't apply at all to all white collar work - certainly not at the 10x - 100x difference in college tuitions. Not to mention, I also gave the example of the tuitions for a Swiss university, and Swiss salaries are typically at least comparable to US salaries, even in CS.
zajio1am 1y ago
> Healthcare is cheap Is it? I pay 13.5% of my income as healthcare 'tax' for public healthcare. Overall, it is cheaper than US healthcare (as a percentage of GDP), but individually it is still a significant expense.
basisword 1y ago
>> University is expensive as fck. While healthcare is brought up all the time this is usually ignored. The idea of parents saving a 'college fund' for their child is something I only know from movies. It's such a strange idea that access to education would be something you either need to be able to afford or need to get a 'scholarship' for (another strange concept).
- Forgeties79 1y ago
  I set up an education fund for my kids when they were 2 and I still can’t be sure it’ll be enough. It’s really bad.
- tptacek 1y ago
  Implicit in all these stories is that "education" means "access to highly selective universities". In-state tuition at Directional State University is much more manageable.
  - sumeno 1y ago
    Not really. I went to a public land grant university 20 years ago and paid about $12k a year in state. That same university is now $44k per year.
    - tptacek 1y ago
      Both my kids went to UIUC and we paid about $15k/yr, and both my kids graduated within the last couple years. And UIUC isn't a Directional State University; it's the flagship of the UI system. You can just look this up: tuition numbers aren't secret.
      - sumeno 1y ago
        Ok I will. This claims the cost of attendance is $36,930-$42,310 per year: https://www.admissions.illinois.edu/invest/tuition https://www.admissions.illinois.edu/invest/tuition This claims $21k per semester: https://cost.illinois.edu/Home/Cost/R/U/10KP0112BS/15/120258/120258 https://cost.illinois.edu/Home/Cost/R/U/10KP0112BS/15/120258...
Aurornis 1y ago
> University is expensive as fck. One thing that's hard to understand from the outside is that almost nobody actually pays those mind-blowing $60K/year tuition prices. US universities charge on a sliding scale based on the applicants' families' ability to pay. For an extreme example: Harvard's tuition is nominally $60K per year, but for families earning $200K or less it's $0. Many prestigious universities follow similar patterns resulting in a large percentage of students paying no tuition, the middle ground of students paying some fraction, and a small number of students from wealthy families subsidizing everyone else. For those who don't attend the prestigious universities with large endowments, average in-state state-run University tuition is under $10K, though again a large percentage of students receive some form of aids or grants to bring that number down even further. That said, it's entirely possible or someone to go out and sign up for bad investment private university with no aid and rack up $300K of debt by graduation if they're not paying attention to anything, but it's a myth to think that everyone does this. The average US college student graduates with around $30-40K debt depending on whether they go public or private, which isn't all that hard to pay off when our wages are already significantly higher than other countries. We're especially lucky in tech where our compensation differential relative to other countries more than makes up for the cost of university education.
- StackRanker3000 1y ago
  > For an extreme example: Harvard's tuition is nominally $60K per year, but for families earning $200K or less it's $0. Many prestigious universities follow similar patterns resulting in a large percentage of students paying no tuition, the middle ground of students paying some fraction, and a small number of students from wealthy families subsidizing everyone else. As someone from a country (Sweden) that to a larger extent has decreased people’s reliance on their families, and grown the welfare state instead, it’s weird to think that your parents wealth or income should have any impact on things like tuition, once you’ve reached the age of majority Once I finished high school, my parents had nothing to do with my business as far as any institutions were concerned, and vice versa. But uni was tax-funded and free at the point of use. And when they get too old to care for themselves, it will likely be the government supporting them financially, not me (unless I strike it rich first, in which case I suppose they’ll spend their sunset years in style)

arwhatever 1y ago

Perennial “What Armenians should know about life in America (2014)” from days of HN past https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22777745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22777745 And which today must be read via internet archive https://web.archive.org/web/20200404172130/https://likewise.am/2014/12/26/what-armenians-should-know-about-life-in-america/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200404172130/https://likewise.... Basically explaining to Armenians at home why their relatives who moved to America don’t send better remittances back home despite their $X pay rate. Here’s why …

selfmodruntime 1y ago

> University was cheap or free Ha! I wish. It's not free. You will pay the same that Americans pay for Uni over your life many times over since tax rates in the EU are really high. Healthcare isn't exactly cheap either. And everything you wrote is just the result of decades of prosperity that are now coming to an end. This will be a shock for many.

stronglikedan 1y ago

> This is why quality of life in Europe, is so superior. That's very subjective, and I would rather have my freedoms instead of your/their liberties, thanks!

vecinu 1y ago
[flagged]
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 1y ago
  [flagged]
LastTrain 1y ago
The only major differences I can think of are gun ownership and abortion. What freedoms were you referring to?
- bfg_9k 1y ago
  Speech?
  - LastTrain 1y ago
    Can you be more specific? What sort of thing could you say in the US that would cause government action if you said it in Canada? Those freedoms are fading fast under this administration at any rate.

georgeecollins 1y ago

If this were true, the number of Americans I have known who moved to Europe would be roughly equal to the number of Europeans I have known who have moved to the US. That's not data, that's anecdote. But what is the European country where more people go there from the US than come to the US from there?

no_wizard 1y ago
The two things are not equals. The US has for a western country, relaxed standards for immigration[0], in particular if you were coming from Europe, it's quite a bit easier to establish residency here. The reverse is not true. European nations aren't very immigration friendly by comparison. On top of that, the US government, assuming you keep your citizenship, does not make it easy to live abroad. US government tax policy for citizens who live overseas is much more aggressive than any other western country, from what I understand. Combined with the fact its alot harder to go the other way, and the US government does a fair amount to discourage it, I'm not shocked more US citizens aren't moving to Europe. [0]: At least before Trump returned to office, I'm unsure how much of this has changed.
- georgeecollins 1y ago
  That's a fair point. But until recently you could move to a lot of countries in Europe for an investment less than a house in California. But I accept that could be the true reason.
  - no_wizard 1y ago
    >That's a fair point. But until recently you could move to a lot of countries in Europe for an investment less than a house in California. That alone is enough to put most people out of grasp of doing this, for a multitude of reasons, of which not having the capital is only part of the equation, as you would also need to have a suitable investment on the other side to put said money, not a promise. I'm sure there are other nuances involved too. Thats before the fact that the cost of a house in California would price most people out of the equation to begin with.

BobbyTables2 1y ago

In tech, 3-4 weeks vacation not usual for senior roles. Often “unlimited” but in practice far more than 10 days. That might be for new/inexperienced hires in crappy companies.

stephen_g 1y ago
For comparison, 4 weeks is the absolute minimum for any full-time worker here in Australia, and that’s less than people in the UK/Europe get.
- BobbyTables2 1y ago
  Wow, sounds nice. Started at 2 Weeks at beginning of career. Had even a bit less due to 3-5 days of mandatory shutdowns during Christmas time.

uyzstvqs 1y ago

It's evident that you're saying this as a non-European, as there's no "European healthcare". Many (most?) European countries have private healthcare systems. Switzerland has it and offers some of the best healthcare in Europe and in the world. Similar systems work great in many other European countries as well. The problems with American healthcare are not because it's market-based, it's because how that market is managed. Some other countries have public universal healthcare. It can work well, but it requires a high-income country with both wealth in abundance and significant government efficiency. It only truly works well in Scandinavia so far. This is not "socialist healthcare" as some will dubiously claim, it's sort of the opposite, which is why it works.

CivBase 1y ago

> University is expensive as fck. Health care is expensive as fck. University isn't near as big of a problem. That's not something the blindsides you like health care expenses. Nobody is making you spend $300k on university. Got my engineering degree at a public university for ~$100k in total and had it paid off 5 years after graduation. But a $195k hospital bill is something I'd never be prepared for. Nobody chooses to go to a hospital.

tsimionescu 1y ago
For $100k, you could pay the tuition fees for 4-10 (depending on exact school choice) of the best universities in Europe outside the UK combined - and I'm talking of the foreign student fees, not the much lower tuitions that EU citizens get.
- CivBase 1y ago
  That's great, but you've missed my point. I get payed more in the US, so I can afford the extra cost for university. And once that university bill is paid, I can pocket the extra. There are still reasons why high university costs can be a problem. Teachers, for example, don't get paid near enough to be able to cover university costs in a few years like I was able to. But becoming a teacher requires just as much investment. But even then, the cost of college loans is far more manageable for even teachers than an unexpected $195k visit to the hospital. University cost is a problem in the US, but I don't think it's comparable to the problem we have with health care costs.
  - tsimionescu 1y ago
    That's true for a handful of jobs, but not so much in general. Sure, in CS and medicine and Wall Street you get salaries that are huge compared to typical EU salaries. But this doesn't apply at all to all white collar work - certainly not at the 10x - 100x difference in college tuitions. Not to mention, I also gave the example of the tuitions for a Swiss university, and Swiss salaries are typically at least comparable to US salaries, even in CS.

zajio1am 1y ago

> Healthcare is cheap Is it? I pay 13.5% of my income as healthcare 'tax' for public healthcare. Overall, it is cheaper than US healthcare (as a percentage of GDP), but individually it is still a significant expense.

basisword 1y ago

>> University is expensive as fck. While healthcare is brought up all the time this is usually ignored. The idea of parents saving a 'college fund' for their child is something I only know from movies. It's such a strange idea that access to education would be something you either need to be able to afford or need to get a 'scholarship' for (another strange concept).

Forgeties79 1y ago
I set up an education fund for my kids when they were 2 and I still can’t be sure it’ll be enough. It’s really bad.
tptacek 1y ago
Implicit in all these stories is that "education" means "access to highly selective universities". In-state tuition at Directional State University is much more manageable.
- sumeno 1y ago
  Not really. I went to a public land grant university 20 years ago and paid about $12k a year in state. That same university is now $44k per year.
  - tptacek 1y ago
    Both my kids went to UIUC and we paid about $15k/yr, and both my kids graduated within the last couple years. And UIUC isn't a Directional State University; it's the flagship of the UI system. You can just look this up: tuition numbers aren't secret.
    - sumeno 1y ago
      Ok I will. This claims the cost of attendance is $36,930-$42,310 per year: https://www.admissions.illinois.edu/invest/tuition https://www.admissions.illinois.edu/invest/tuition This claims $21k per semester: https://cost.illinois.edu/Home/Cost/R/U/10KP0112BS/15/120258/120258 https://cost.illinois.edu/Home/Cost/R/U/10KP0112BS/15/120258...

Aurornis 1y ago

> University is expensive as fck. One thing that's hard to understand from the outside is that almost nobody actually pays those mind-blowing $60K/year tuition prices. US universities charge on a sliding scale based on the applicants' families' ability to pay. For an extreme example: Harvard's tuition is nominally $60K per year, but for families earning $200K or less it's $0. Many prestigious universities follow similar patterns resulting in a large percentage of students paying no tuition, the middle ground of students paying some fraction, and a small number of students from wealthy families subsidizing everyone else. For those who don't attend the prestigious universities with large endowments, average in-state state-run University tuition is under $10K, though again a large percentage of students receive some form of aids or grants to bring that number down even further. That said, it's entirely possible or someone to go out and sign up for bad investment private university with no aid and rack up $300K of debt by graduation if they're not paying attention to anything, but it's a myth to think that everyone does this. The average US college student graduates with around $30-40K debt depending on whether they go public or private, which isn't all that hard to pay off when our wages are already significantly higher than other countries. We're especially lucky in tech where our compensation differential relative to other countries more than makes up for the cost of university education.

StackRanker3000 1y ago
> For an extreme example: Harvard's tuition is nominally $60K per year, but for families earning $200K or less it's $0. Many prestigious universities follow similar patterns resulting in a large percentage of students paying no tuition, the middle ground of students paying some fraction, and a small number of students from wealthy families subsidizing everyone else. As someone from a country (Sweden) that to a larger extent has decreased people’s reliance on their families, and grown the welfare state instead, it’s weird to think that your parents wealth or income should have any impact on things like tuition, once you’ve reached the age of majority Once I finished high school, my parents had nothing to do with my business as far as any institutions were concerned, and vice versa. But uni was tax-funded and free at the point of use. And when they get too old to care for themselves, it will likely be the government supporting them financially, not me (unless I strike it rich first, in which case I suppose they’ll spend their sunset years in style)