29 ms·

Germany’s great tuition fees U-turn

599 points by superfx 12y ago

Heliosmaster 12y ago
* University education? free * Article to read about it? Pay for it. This beautifully sums up the differences of education and news.
- subhro 12y ago
  Very well said!
- tptacek 12y ago
  I have no idea what this comparison is supposed to mean. Where does journalism come from? The Department of Journalism?
  - tomp 12y ago
    In London, it largely comes from university students interning for free, or desperate young graduates working free internships "to gain experience".
    - infinity0 12y ago
      Yeah, and the editors treat them like shit and put their own propaganda slants on their articles.
  - VLM 12y ago
    In the UK, most (admittedly not all) real journalism comes from mandatory government taxes paid to the BBC. You're looking at the private college equivalent of journalism here, not a free public uni.
    - cbd1984 12y ago
      > most (admittedly not all) real journalism comes from mandatory government taxes paid to the BBC. Which doesn't influence the BBC at all. We know this because the BBC says it isn't influenced.
- mattjaynes 12y ago
  Non-paywalled articles on this: http://www.fchornet.com/news/all-german-universities-will-be-free-of-charge-when-term-h3090.html http://www.fchornet.com/news/all-german-universities-will-be... http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/22027/1/germany-scraps-tuition-fees-for-all-universities http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/22027/1/g...
- untog 12y ago
  I'm not sure that it sums up anything. * Non-profit? free * Profit-based company? Pay for it.
subhro 12y ago
I wish this happened in US. The fee part, not the paid to read part :)
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  I go to Oakland University in Michigan and we are the only University in the state(country?) to charge no fees. Tuition is still high but that is usually set by the state.
  - pmr_ 12y ago
    There seems to be a confusion of words here. You seem to make a difference between tuition and tuition fees while the Wikipedia [1] article suggests that those terms mean the same in different English dialects. As for Germany: almost all public Universities still take fees (usually around 100 Euros per semester, tax refundable). Tuition was a new thing and is what has been abandoned again. 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuition_payments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuition_payments
    - Igglyboo 12y ago
      Wikipedia is wrong, most university's in the US have tuition(paid specifically based on how many classes you have) and fees(flat fee for everyone, not based on how many classes you have).
  - valarauca1 12y ago
    What is Oakland's Rough cost per semester? I live in the area and attend their security conferences from the outside looking in it seems like a decent school. I already work as an software developer but a degree doesn't hurt my career options.
    - Igglyboo 12y ago
      About ~6k a semester, assuming 16 credit hours. The university also gave me a ton of grant money for good grades/ACT score in HS. It's a pretty nice school honestly, I think a lot of people in the area look down at it because it's mostly a commuter school but it's comparable to MSU in quality of education and way cheaper.
Igglyboo 12y ago
It's really crazy how the students reacted to this when the fees were introduced. They were very low compared to the US, less than 1000 euros for an entire year yet the students responded with mass protests and vandalism. On university also had it's master key(ring?) stolen and had to spend a lot of money to redo every lock. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielefeld_University#Protests_against_tuition_fees http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielefeld_University#Protests_a...
- tobinfricke 12y ago
  The fees were really laughably small by U.S. standards, but fees, once implemented, seem to turn into a "slippery slope." So, as much as I like to mock my German students for complaining about having to pay €200 per semester, I think they were right to protest and "nip it in the bud". For instance, the University of California is formally tuition-free for in-state residents (edit: is this correct?), but over the last several decades, the required "campus fees" have grown from zero to $12,972 per year (UC Berkeley). (Perhaps someone could find a nice graph of the required fees vs time from 1960 until today.)
  - cafard 12y ago
    After one of Mark Edmundson's op ed pleas for students and parents to consider college as non-vocational, I had a look at the University of Virginia's tuition and fees from the late 1970s to recently. Comparing this against the minimum wage, I found that a student could have earned the 1978-1979 tuition and fees working a bit over eight weeks at the minimum wage. For the 2011-2012 school year, it was more than 38 weeks.
    - mkaziz 12y ago
      Is this before or after tax? 38 weeks seems short to me.
      - brianwawok 12y ago
        Well, 38 weeks * 40 hours * 7.25 per hour = $11,020. Your total tax bill at a yearly income of $11,020 is very close to $0 (and with educational credits I suspect you would get back slightly more than you pay).
rikacomet 12y ago
another version: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/15/german-university-tuition-fees-abolished http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/15/german-universi... I basically think this is a very big news. It effects a lot of people. Though I think this only applies (and should) to domestic students. In our country (India) .. the Right to Education Act was a hot topic this year.. it still has to go a long way.. but it can learn from Germany's example of doing away with the fees altogether in Public Universities. Young people are the driving force behind the economy. But many fail to live up to their potential due to economic constraints. 1. Most Public Universities already run mostly upon Tax-Payers Money. So Burden is not that sudden, as one would think. 2. Expansions would be more scrutinized. We have to look at this in terms of Fixed and Variable/Recurring Cost. 3. Caution would be required on part of distributing the money corpus. Some colleges are in comfortable zone of the balance sheet, while some aren't. Those who are not, need to be looked after. 4. Students should still be charged for some "Extras" like Foreign Trips (optional in many colleges). I would love to know the finer details of how German Govt is handling the economics around this decision. This could be a Epic Success or Epic Fail. The dice has been cast.
- Kliment 12y ago
  That's from three and a half years ago and refers to a different state.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- pmr_ 12y ago
  No dice has been cast. Things simply revert back to how they always have been. One important thing to know is that German universities are not handled by the federal government but on a state level (as all things educational) but there is a broader framework to keeps things aligned. Only some states decided to demand tuition for their universities in 2006 (some later) and most quickly stopped again after a few years.
- 0xFFC 12y ago
  I cant understand this should part of your answer ? why should only applicable for domestic students?
sarciszewski 12y ago
But the newspapers haven't scrapped the paywall. (And setting my user agent to "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)" http://www.google.com/bot.html)" didn't dispel it :(
shmerl 12y ago
Impressive. I wish US would do the same.
- pjmlp 12y ago
  From an European point of view, the US university system is crazy. In many European countries the value of state universities over private ones is very high regarded, that except for a few well renowned exceptions, private universities are seen as places where you buy a title, not earn one. As they mostly get the students that weren't able to go through the national exams for the state universities.
  - zura 12y ago
    Yup, I always thought about top US universities as rich kids clubs.
  - malvim 12y ago
    This is EXACTLY the same situation as here in Brazil. Very few well renowned private universities, but the very best ones are the state universities.
  - VLM 12y ago
    "places where you buy a title" We have public community college systems for this. The "night school" programs have tolerable rep, although associate degrees are vocationally worthless in the economy usually there are well established credit transfer programs. The day students are the ones who partied too hard to get into a "better" school or people with severe financial or personal issues. Or weirdos like me. I have an economically worthless associates degree in electronics from the very early 90s, but another way to look at it is I only paid about $4K cash out of pocket for 56 transfer credits which is about $70/credit. I work near a private regionally well regarded engineering school and their optimistic web page claims $47240/yr total today in 2014 (certainly real world would cost more) which works out to about $1475/credit. (edited well this is embarrassing, I didn't correct for 2014 tuition at the community college where I got the A.S. in electronics in the early 90s. 2014 fall tuition is $125.85/credit, $4.50 mandatory minimum materials fee per class, $7.55 student activity mandatory fee, $6/semester mandatory accident liability policy fee. Shockingly they got rid of their technology fee and parking permit fee, nice. So about $140/credit in the fall of 2014, to compare apples to apples).
s_dev 12y ago
Whilst tuition fees in Ireland have not really risen - registration fees have gone from €200 to €3,000 over the 08-14'recession. In the UK fees have also risen. Finland and Denmark are free. I'm not that familiar with Southern or Eastern Europe. I think free third level institutions are important but I'm not opposed to the "free now tax later after certain pay threshold" education systems like Australia. Also [image] this: https://i.imgur.com/SXNtYyi.jpg https://i.imgur.com/SXNtYyi.jpg taken from corrosponding reddit thread is also relevant. It illustrates tuition fees in Europe.
- dasboth 12y ago
  Technically not all university education is free in Hungary. If you don't get the required grades to get in but your grades are above a certain threshold you can pay tuition fees and go on the course.
- xyzzyz 12y ago
  In the University of Warsaw, Poland, the only compulsory fees are $30 for registration, and $35 to get your diploma nicely bound. Well, come to think of it, you can even skip the binding.
- icebraining 12y ago
  A problem with that graphic is that it's not adjusted to the local purchasing power. 1000€/year is very different for someone who earns, say, 1440€/month (minimum wage in France) compared to someone who earns 505€/month (minimum wage here in Portugal).
- _of 12y ago
  Sweden is also free. Plus you get 1100 SEK/month in assistance from the government.
  - Tehnix 12y ago
    You get a nice 5900 DKK/Month (7217 SEK or 1000$) here in Denmark :)
cmdkeen 12y ago
There's a big difference between no tuition fees and "free" education. All this means is that the cost of education is passed on to all tax payers. Now this can be justified, there is utility in having an educated workforce and society. However when everyone is paying there is a need to have a decision about how many people need that education to provide the benefits everyone gets. The UK is seeing these problems with 40% of school leavers going to university. There aren't enough jobs for graduates and we are way past the point of marginal returns in terms of social or cultural advancement. Personally I much prefer the idea of fees and student loans. Not US style versions of either. In the UK they are effectively a graduate tax that you may pay off in time, they don't harm your credit rating and repayments are a percentage of your income about a relatively high amount (close to the average salary).
- edent 12y ago
  They don't harm your credit rating, but... * You have to declare them when trying to get a mortgage (or any other loan) and so may reduce the amount you are leant. * If you go bankrupt - the loan does not go away. * Want to launch a funky startup? Now the graduates you want to work for you start demanding more money because a higher percentage now goes back to the Student Loan Company. I fought hard against the introduction of fees when they were introduced in the UK. In 1998 they were set at £1k a year - we said it was a slippery slope and were dismissed as paranoid. Fees in the UK are now up to £9k per year.
  - cmdkeen 12y ago
    All of those things act like any other tax. That's all it is, a tax you may one day stop paying. A mortgage is dependent on your ability to repay, i.e. your net income, if the income tax rate went up then mortgage companies would also reduce the amount they would lend you. The alternatives are either a graduate tax - which has all of the issues you mention, except you never stop paying it, so potentially pay far more than the cost of your education - or general taxation in which case the people who didn't go to university (generally less well off) are paying for your degree.
    - 12y ago
jiggy2011 12y ago
Has there been any extensive research done on relationship between university fees and social mobility? On one hand it seems obvious that if you reduce costs of attending university you remove a barrier that would prevent economically disadvantaged people from attending. But on the other hand, university students, especially those at the best universities disproportionately come from better economic backgrounds and this seems to be true everywhere. In this case it doesn't seem fair to tax people who are poor to pay for something that is mainly of benefit to the rich. In the UK we have a student loan system where students do not have to pay back loans unless they earn over a threshold amount, so in theory there is nothing to prevent a poor person going to university regardless of how high the fees are.
- Retric 12y ago
  The economy is not zero sum and educated people on average make more. So, the net cost over time for subsidizing education is probably a small fraction of the sticker price. Or possibly it ends up paying for it's self.
  - jiggy2011 12y ago
    But if they do make more, does it not make sense for the university grad to pay that cost after they have graduated?
    - Cthulhu_ 12y ago
      Well they do, but indirectly, via higher income taxes (because higher pay). The Dutch school system uses what you're suggesting actually; the government offers scholarships to all students, which is effectively a (low-interest) loan; if you finish your education, that loan or part thereof (depending on whether you took an extra loan, it's complicated) is forfeited, i.e. you don't have to pay it back. The remainder can be paid off in monthly terms, but the amount you have to pay off is determined based on how much money you earn. If you are unable to get a good enough job to pay back that loan, it's forfeited after 15 or 25 years (I think it used to be 15 and they upped it recently). It's kinda complicated though, and they had some heavy cuts in the system a while ago due to the economy - which IMHO is a huge shame, since a lot of students won't choose a higher education now, causing university studies to only be in reach of the rich once again.
malvim 12y ago
The federal and state universities here in Brazil have always been free. In fact, most people here use the terms "public" as a synonym for "free of charge", when talking about education. I think this is great, but it is not "education for everyone" as sometimes it's touted to be. The problem we have is not about paying for college education, but in being able to pass the entry exams. Even though the public higher-education institutions are free of any tuition fees, an enormous part of their students is still composed of upper-middle-class kids, whose parents could afford the high-priced private middle and high schools. It's great we have free public schools, but the inclusion they should provide is still a long ways of becoming true.
taejo 12y ago
I'm a student at a German university, and I don't pay tuition fees, but I do pay about 400€ a year in "semester fees", of which the two largest components are "student services" and a compulsory season ticket for regional transport; student union membership and some kind of insurance contribution are also included.
- vapourismo 12y ago
  400€ per year or per semester? Where? I am at the Institute of Technology in Berlin and I payed 290.37€ this semester, which includes 179.40€ for public transport.
  - andreasklinger 12y ago
    so you paid 80€ more ?
    - katbyte 12y ago
      > 290.37€ this semester, which includes 179.40€ ~110€ less
    - heinrich5991 12y ago
      No, he pays ~110€ less.
  - taejo 12y ago
    Per year.
- garagemc2 12y ago
  Hey quick question - are comp sci courses in Germany taught in English throughout?
  - 2ion 12y ago
    No, it depends on the university. The predominant language of teaching in undergraduate courses in Germany is still German. However, the amount of course offerings in English language is increasing. The most common model now should be that a few classes each semester are being offered in English, which are often being taught by visiting professors or guest lecturers.
GolfyMcG 12y ago
Why has no one brought up how the top German university is "ranked" 55th on this list: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2013-14/world-ranking http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-ranki... I'm not saying this list is definitive or that the US tuition prices are reasonable, but it stands to reason that the best of the best of anything is going to be exponentially more expensive than it's next closest competitors.
- Glan1984 12y ago
  Because that list was made by Brits. I bet a German made list would look different ;). Anyone who values lists like this is a fool. Just saying.
- jbangert 12y ago
  Without going into the metrics that these rankings use and their flaws, the German university system unfortunately focuses less on "elite" universitities, instead trying to create a good average experience, so most of the universities are actually fairly on-par with each other in terms of funding, and therefore also research output, teaching, etc. That being said, my experience with high-prestige american universities has been that the expense has very little to do, and feeds very little into, the quality of the education. US universities are expensive because they have massive bureaucratic overhead and are funded through a peculiar model (Government gives money to people, which give money to universities). Also, Germany used to have no tuition until the mid-2000s or so, and only some places introduced it, and it was really, really low.
  - tegeek 12y ago
    I think you are right. Sweden is more or less has the same model as German when it comes to higher education. There are no particular "elite" universities & most of the universities are more or less on the same level when it comes to funding, research output, teaching etc. Even as an International student back in 2008, I paid 0$ in tuition fees & used to pay 30$ as student union fee per study term/semester and have best study experience I can imagine.
xtc 12y ago
All German universities free of charge... [paywall]
raverbashing 12y ago
I find the "American model" and the "European model" dichotomy very interesting. American model: individually centered, "pay for what you want", development is driven by small companies and individual decisions (most of the time). "Works for me" European model: centered on the community, social support, development by committee/government/consensus. Slow but directed improvements Germany could not have produced Facebook. But they have a great train network. France puts satellites on orbit and does the TGV. In the US you have millionaires came out of "nothing" (of course, from nice universities, nice contacts, etc), people jumping at opportunities, while in Europe this would take 2 meetings, 3 viability studies and 4 months. So, while I'm more towards in favour of the European model someone has to ask themselves what are they missing. Yes, they have a very nice and educated workforce that will be ready to work and be very productive at a big company where they will work hard, sure, but will come out with the least amount of new ideas (that's not their job), and will do the things most likely to be accepted by the majority.
- rbehrends 12y ago
  > Germany could not have produced Facebook. "Could not" is a bit strong. "Unlikely" I'd agree with. But my rationale is different: German businesses traditionally have a strong bias towards B2B models (esp. the "Mittelstand") and startups eschew consumer-facing business models. For example, America has Microsoft, Germany has SAP.
- ionised 12y ago
  The way you describe it makes the EU system sound preferable.
  - bharath28 12y ago
    This. And that somehow a viable combination of the two approaches can't be built.
- spydum 12y ago
  that is one of the great part of being human: diversity of thought. it's a shame most people are convinced that they are "right", and assume there can only be one right model. Leads to people trying to establish these monocultures, which usually fail (over time).
etattva 12y ago
All american kids complaining about Tuition, move to Germany now
pranayairan 12y ago
nice, it will promote more college education for people who drop of due to tuition fees.
pmontra 12y ago
Jump on the time machine and read about university concerns when the city of Hamburg joined this trend in 2011 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/15/german-university-tuition-fees-abolished http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/15/german-universi... Is there any German here that can tell us how it is turning out to be? Thanks.
- thejdude 12y ago
  I think all German states have abolished tuition fees after lots of public outcry about them (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studiengeb%C3%BChr#Deutschland http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studiengeb%C3%BChr#Deutschland). It says that Niedersachsen decided to abolish fees for the 2014-2015 semester as the last state in Germany to do so.
hippich 12y ago
Lately I started thinking that students should be paid, not other way around. I.e. attending university should be considered a job, with pay based on performance (grades)
- 0xFFC 12y ago
  why people down voted such good idea ?
thedaveoflife 12y ago
One "problem" we have occasionally in Berlin: People enrolling as students without actually attending classes to get all the added benefits of being a student in Germany. Almost everything over here carries a student discount.
- DasIch 12y ago
  The student discounts you get isn't really worth it. The semester ticket for public transport though costs about 1€ a day. That is incredibly cheap compared to the regular tickets. Other universities have the same problem though. In NRW you can practically travel through the entire state with a semester ticket at roughly the same price.
  - thedaveoflife 12y ago
    The Studenten-BahnCard saves you a ton of money on train travel too
PythonicAlpha 12y ago
It should be noted here, that in the past (10-20 years ago), Germany did not have any tuition fees ... and fared very well with this model for many decades. Only lately, because the German govnmt wanted to save the costs for the universities, they invented the fees with the argument, that with more funding, the quality of education could be better. But many universities just used the money to cover costs, that where not covered any more from the money they got from the country. So, essentially it was a cost reduction program to reduce costs for the state finance ... thus freeing money that could go to banks and big companies. The system was not well received by the students and also some German countries dropped the program, thus putting some pressure on the others, since the students prefered the universities without fees. I guess, that was the reason now, that the last country dropped the fees. In my opinion, countries like GB make a big error by forcing enormous fees unto students. In the result, the students which do not come from millionaires houses are either at the mercy of the banks for decades or many people that well could study, just do not. Thus the nation looses many talents (in both outcomes).
- shamney 12y ago
  student loans in the UK are provided by the government at relatively low interest rates. There is a minimum earning threshold before repayment can begin and a hard limit on the total proportion of income that can be taken for repayment. So no one is "at the mercy of the banks" and only a small number of people have been discouraged from attending university.
  - PythonicAlpha 12y ago
    > and only a small number of people have been discouraged from attending university. How do you know that. Have you asked the people? I doubt what you say (not about the loans, I guess you know better than I, but in the US people are really at the mercy of the banks). Even, when only few are discouraged, you have a loss. The UK gvnmt should know: You can't have both: Save money and have good education for all without losses. When many use the loans, the savings for the UK are limited, since not all will be able to repay the money in full. Also the UK looses the money from the people that did not attend university. And it looses innovation -- all things that can not be calculated, but might finally well excell the pennies, the UK saves now. It even might loose the future (UK already has nearly only banking left as most important industry, so innovation would be really needed to revive the former proud "empire").
davesque 12y ago
Wow...I guess I'm happy for them. But here in the US that just makes me feel depressed.
omot 12y ago
"you need to subscribe." I can't read the article.
conkrete 12y ago
Would be nice if they could scrap the fees so I could read the entire article...
tyoma 12y ago
I see lots of envy from US and UK based people, but not any thought given to the great opportunity: Germany accepts international students. Why not go to a German university and get a quality education paid for by the German taxpayer? As a bonus, you'll get to learn German for free.
- dmix 12y ago
  Is it even covered for international students? In Canada international students pay much higher rates for tuition. About $10k for a program that might cost Canadians $3k. It's a huge racket. I'd be surprised if Germans decided to do the same, as well as taxpayers being will to pay for foreigners education.
  - tyoma 12y ago
    Last time I was in Germany I talked to a Thai gentleman who was an international student there. He said all of his tuition was covered, and that it was standard policy. Some Googling seems to confirm thats the case, but someone from Germany should really clarify.
    - whyever 12y ago
      Usually there are no tuition fees for anyone, including international students. (You have to pay administration fees which are a few 100 euros a semester.)
  - krrrh 12y ago
    Yeah, international students pay the same tuition/fees in Germany as Germans, which is to say next to nothing. I know several people that have, or are doing graduate degrees here. Usually there is 100-200€ in fees per semester but that often includes a transit/intercity train pass within the state. It struck me as odd at first too, coming from Canada where certain programs at certain universities take as many international students as they can to subsidize the rest of the program. Keep in mind this usually (but not always) involves passing the TestDAF to prove German fluency.
  - 12y ago
robomartin 12y ago
Not sure free education provides absolutely net positive results. More data might be required. If you look at a country like Argentina, where university level education has been free probably since the country was founded you see issues. Running 10x more people through universities does not create 10x more prosperity. Lots of Medical Doctors in Argentina almost starve. Engineers drive taxis or own pizza joints. The only way some of these people can reliably make a solid change to their lives is to leave the country and seek work elsewhere. In that case the net effect within the nation is still negative. Again, not sure how to think about something like this other than to operate under my admittedly preconceived notion that most people don't value or work hard at anything that is free. I could be wrong.
- 0xFFC 12y ago
  just having free universities is different than good free universities ! I can't imagine a good graduate starve ! they will create job ! but teaching just math and history and memorizing them and saying these people are well educated is just big lie ! education should be free (and with financial fund for all students) but should be very very competitive (not for money , money should be available for all, good grade should be very competitive ) ! In this case many people will drop universities ! because they cannot afford such efforts ! and educated one will be really educated !
- thejdude 12y ago
  Free shouldn't mean that everybody attends college. Degree inflation sucks. I observe the same problem in Germany - more and more people attend school/university for more and more years, but don't turn out any brighter overall.
brkn 12y ago
I started paying around 250 Euro when starting my study at the university (2009). This term I had to pay aroung 290 Euro. The fee for the TU Berlin is composed of: Verwaltungsgebühr (gem. § 2 Abs. 7 BerlHG) (administrative fee) 50,00 € Beitrag zur Studierendenschaft (Contribution to the student body) 8,70 € Beitrag zum Studentenwerk (Contribution to the Student Services) 48,77 € Beitrag zum Semesterticket (Contribution to the semester ticket) 179,40 € Beitrag zum Sozialfonds zum Semesterticket (Contribution to the Social Fund for Semesterticket) 3,50 € = 290,37 € Of course it is still much cheaper than to study in other countries. But the fees are growing and you have to pay for the semester ticket, which is essentially a ticket for all public transportation in Berlin, even though you wouldn't need it. *Translated with Google Translator
- deleted 12y ago
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- oscargrouch 12y ago
  Google translator for German looks awesome; its not that good for Portuguese :/
dang 12y ago
From http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/feature-germanys-great-tuition-fees-u-turn/2011168.fullarticle http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/feature-germa... it's clear that tuition fees had only been around for a few years in Germany, were relatively low, and most states had already dropped them. Edit: I think we'll change the url to this article, because it's more substantive and not behind a paywall like http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article4213550.ece http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article42135... is.
jo_ 12y ago
I've been digging through this thread and can't seem to find any information on the impact of 'free tuition' on tuition costs. In the US, we saw an increase in loan availability result in a significant uptick in the price of attendance to universities. If the government is paying the cost of tuition, how is the cost of tuition kept in check? Disclaimer: I love the idea of free public education. I wish it would take hold in the US. My only concern is how Universities will react to being paid almost arbitrary amounts of money per-student.
- ori_b 12y ago
  > If the government is paying the cost of tuition, how is the cost of tuition kept in check? The government pays what it wants. If the government refuses to pay, what is the university going to do? It's not like it can compete with free.
- PythonicAlpha 12y ago
  I live in Germany and from my experience, the system of free education worked ~40 years or more (not counting the last years, that we had those fees, which where invented I guess in the 90s or 00s). We had excellent education for several decades without fees and it worked fine, until the gvnmts (not only the German) got the idea, that there are more important things than education (for example military, big corporations and banks). Of course you should not just "pay arbitrary amounts" to the universities but hold the people accountable for what they spent.
- ginko 12y ago
  > If the government is paying the cost of tuition, how is the cost of tuition kept in check? By the government negotiating costs? I'd say a single payer has more bargaining power than individual students. Same as with public healthcare.
  - jo_ 12y ago
    I'd completely forgotten about the single-payer negotiation aspect. That makes sense.
- 12y ago
saool 12y ago
I wish the debate focused less on cost-benefit analysis and on ways to engineer a just "chargeback" using loans or taxes and more about the idea that maybe people should be encouraged to pursue education just for the sake of it, to become free men and free thinkers, regardless of whether they'd be economically better off by taking electricity at trade school just to quickly join the assembly line at Volkswagen so that they can make money to buy a bigger plasma TV. /rant
- acadien 12y ago
  I agree with everything said above, but what about the fact that society will always need plumbers, garbage collectors, fast food employees etc.? I'm not even sure that this is a counter point to what is mentioned above, just more thinking out loud. Is it possible to have a high functioning/efficient society in which there are no economic pressures to motivate people?
  - rthomas6 12y ago
    If you believe some people, one day all those jobs will be automated away.
    - meentsbk 12y ago
      This video by C.G.P. Grey is, at least for me, thought-provoking on this matter: http://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU http://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU
      - iammyIP 12y ago
        nice video, i think its pretty much spot-on.
    - VBprogrammer 12y ago
      Garbage collection could be automated tomorrow if we wanted. Fast food is just a matter of us not trying hard enough but plumbers is a difficult one. Not saying it couldn't happen. Two scenarios I could see are everyone lives in a prefab home, when things start to go wrong you just replace it. That leaves all the plumbing to just cutting and bending pipes to pre-built designs and installing it in prearranged steps. I could see that being possible. Another interesting case could be that all houses are 3d printed, with cavities for plumbing printed right into the fabric of the building, and possibly sealed in someway.
SEJeff 12y ago
Do all professors become employed by the government then?
- krylon 12y ago
  In Germany (where I live, I am not sure how it works in other countries), that is how it works. There are some private universities, but not many (and they tend to focus on "cheap" subjects in the sense of "cheap to provide training" - training a medical doctor or a chemist apparently is far more expensive than training an MBA) - Professors teaching at private universities, are, of course, employed by those universities. If you want to work in academia, you will have to jump through lots of hoops, usually going from one temporary contract to another until you get tenure. But all along the way, you are technically employed by the government (more strictly, Professors are employed by the state government, not by the federal government, because education is the domain of the federal states. (Even more strictly speaking there are a few universities that are run by the military for educating their officers - those belong to the federal department of "defense", and the professors teaching there are employees of the federal government.)
  - SEJeff 12y ago
    Wow totally jealous. I'm of German descent (last name: Schroeder, 3rd generation in the US), but we have it very bad in comparison. We have these parasitic institutions called "for profit" colleges that are typical capitalist greed. Their goal is to extract as much money out of students who can't do math so well and end up with unbelievably large loans. Most state ran colleges are respectable, but the most all of the best colleges in America are private or private "Ivy League" colleges. Becoming a professor requires a PHD and many years to attain tenure. I simply don't think the pay is competitive for public colleges vs private "for profit" colleges that are money making machines. Most of the best professors work for places you've likely heard of like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. None of those are state colleges. That being said, some state colleges are wonderful (USC is a great example). It is just different, and unfortunately a lot less of a possibility for much of America's working class. US primary and secondary schools are mandatory and free, but college/university (no differentiation in the US) are becoming prohibitively expensive for all of the lower class and much of the middle class. It is bad. The US has a few military colleges such as westpoint and the US Army War College, but those are only open to soldiers and officers, so are a different thing altogether. Note that I work in technology and didn't go to college. Not because I couldn't afford it, but because after 4 years of military service, I was able to trivially get a job in technology. I get paid to write code.
zwieback 12y ago
Another point: US universities look very different from German ones. I live in Corvallis (OSU) now but grew up and went to school in Stuttgart Germany. Compared to the German universities our US schools are country clubs: dorms, restaurants, coffee shops, fitness clubs, green spaces everywhere. Don't even get me started on the sports, it's an outrage how US schools have become sports franchises. I'm guessing most US students would be shocked by the reality of German public universities which basically consist of giant rooms with blackboards and there's not much general ed to speak of. At the graduate level it gets more interesting but that's in years 5-8. My first 4 years studying ME in Stuttgart were almost 100% lectures with a final exam at the end of the semester. Virtually no tutoring and very little corrected homework. You don't get what you don't pay for. On the other hand, you don't really get what you pay for in the US either since the universities have become so good at sucking up more and more student loan money without really improving on their core mission of providing higher education.
- ibebrett 12y ago
  That sounds perfect to me (an american who tends to like learning through MOOCs)
  - personalcompute 12y ago
    I have to wonder if there is anything like this available in the US aside from MOOCs? I haven't explored far, but even the ostensibly bare bones community colleges I've looked at were trying to emulate the typical inclusive social experience model.
- mathattack 12y ago
  Don't even get me started on the sports, it's an outrage how US schools have become sports franchises. This pisses me off too. It's why I don't give money to my Sports Franchise undergrad.
  - skinnybatch 12y ago
    +1 I remember my mother speaking to some college admissions person at a semi-prestigious school in Pennsylvania, many years back when I was in the throws of applying. When speaking to some admissions confusion with respect to my high school, the guy said, "Well frankly, it's not called the Ivy League because of its academics." That's always stuck with me. Athletic scholarships? You betcha. Academic scholarships? What are those?
Havoc 12y ago
Hardly a u-turn. They went from no fees, to negligible fees (uproar) to no fees. Also note that "fees" in the German context is a little bit different than other countries. e.g. Some of the compulsory costs are the equivalent to a transport season pass. Whilst I've got mixed feelings about that it sure seems more tangible that X amount of money disappearing into the general varsity fund.
awendt 12y ago
I'm surprised no one brought up the bigger picture of which types of education Germans pay for and which they don't. While going to university has been free for a long time in Germany (and will be again according to this article), German parents pay for kindergarten and day care. In most countries, it's the other way around and I'd gladly pay for my kids to go to university than pay for the much more basic education before primary school. I paid up to 500 Euros a months for my son's kindergarten. (This is is maximum amount, but that's another story...) This is why I don't get that students were so eager to demonstrate against the introduction of tuition, claiming education is then reserved for rich people. The same argument could be brought up against payments for day care, but no one will acknowledge that. (I guess this is because students are willing to plan for family after the degree.) Reversing this situation would result in better integration of kids from families with immigrant background which is a far better goal than to make higher education more accessible, regardless of money.
- sveme 12y ago
  You are obviously right - kindergarten should be free for all. But you establish a false dichotomy: why exchange free university with free kindergarten? Why not have both? You could certainly argue with limited budget availability, but in the end it's a societal/political decision.
  - awendt 12y ago
    I'm not saying I don't want both :) All I'm saying: If budget is the issue, I'm all for kindergarten. If it's not an issue, make everything free.
ajuc 12y ago
Poland has both paid and free universities, state-run universities are free (but just for the daily courses, there are also evening courses and weekend courses that are paid). Free courses are paid by taxes, and universities have a limit on how much students they can admit on paid courses depending on how much they admit on free courses. There are also private universities with just paid courses, but they are much worse quality (they admit almost anoyone for money, so better students go to the state universities to study for free, and worse students only get admited to the paid ones). The end result is - almost everybody go to the university and do M.A. in something. The education is usually OK, but not great (especially on the worse universities). Everybody have M.A. so it isn't advantage in the job market, just a requirement (there were postman job offerings requiring M.A. for example :) ). The problem is - Polish universities don't do much science, they are mostly for education, people call them M.A. factories.
CurtMonash 12y ago
A century ago the German system basically had no grading until you had a set of oral examinations for your diploma at the end. Or so I was told by my German family. When did that get changed?
alexweber 12y ago
Could someone please post the full text of the article…

599 points by superfx 12y ago

* University education? free * Article to read about it? Pay for it. This beautifully sums up the differences of education and news.

subhro 12y ago
Very well said!
tptacek 12y ago
I have no idea what this comparison is supposed to mean. Where does journalism come from? The Department of Journalism?
- tomp 12y ago
  In London, it largely comes from university students interning for free, or desperate young graduates working free internships "to gain experience".
  - infinity0 12y ago
    Yeah, and the editors treat them like shit and put their own propaganda slants on their articles.
- VLM 12y ago
  In the UK, most (admittedly not all) real journalism comes from mandatory government taxes paid to the BBC. You're looking at the private college equivalent of journalism here, not a free public uni.
  - cbd1984 12y ago
    > most (admittedly not all) real journalism comes from mandatory government taxes paid to the BBC. Which doesn't influence the BBC at all. We know this because the BBC says it isn't influenced.
mattjaynes 12y ago
Non-paywalled articles on this: http://www.fchornet.com/news/all-german-universities-will-be-free-of-charge-when-term-h3090.html http://www.fchornet.com/news/all-german-universities-will-be... http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/22027/1/germany-scraps-tuition-fees-for-all-universities http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/22027/1/g...
untog 12y ago
I'm not sure that it sums up anything. * Non-profit? free * Profit-based company? Pay for it.

subhro 12y ago

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

Igglyboo 12y ago
I go to Oakland University in Michigan and we are the only University in the state(country?) to charge no fees. Tuition is still high but that is usually set by the state.
- pmr_ 12y ago
  There seems to be a confusion of words here. You seem to make a difference between tuition and tuition fees while the Wikipedia [1] article suggests that those terms mean the same in different English dialects. As for Germany: almost all public Universities still take fees (usually around 100 Euros per semester, tax refundable). Tuition was a new thing and is what has been abandoned again. 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuition_payments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuition_payments
  - Igglyboo 12y ago
    Wikipedia is wrong, most university's in the US have tuition(paid specifically based on how many classes you have) and fees(flat fee for everyone, not based on how many classes you have).
- valarauca1 12y ago
  What is Oakland's Rough cost per semester? I live in the area and attend their security conferences from the outside looking in it seems like a decent school. I already work as an software developer but a degree doesn't hurt my career options.
  - Igglyboo 12y ago
    About ~6k a semester, assuming 16 credit hours. The university also gave me a ton of grant money for good grades/ACT score in HS. It's a pretty nice school honestly, I think a lot of people in the area look down at it because it's mostly a commuter school but it's comparable to MSU in quality of education and way cheaper.

Igglyboo 12y ago

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

tobinfricke 12y ago
The fees were really laughably small by U.S. standards, but fees, once implemented, seem to turn into a "slippery slope." So, as much as I like to mock my German students for complaining about having to pay €200 per semester, I think they were right to protest and "nip it in the bud". For instance, the University of California is formally tuition-free for in-state residents (edit: is this correct?), but over the last several decades, the required "campus fees" have grown from zero to $12,972 per year (UC Berkeley). (Perhaps someone could find a nice graph of the required fees vs time from 1960 until today.)
- cafard 12y ago
  After one of Mark Edmundson's op ed pleas for students and parents to consider college as non-vocational, I had a look at the University of Virginia's tuition and fees from the late 1970s to recently. Comparing this against the minimum wage, I found that a student could have earned the 1978-1979 tuition and fees working a bit over eight weeks at the minimum wage. For the 2011-2012 school year, it was more than 38 weeks.
  - mkaziz 12y ago
    Is this before or after tax? 38 weeks seems short to me.
    - brianwawok 12y ago
      Well, 38 weeks * 40 hours * 7.25 per hour = $11,020. Your total tax bill at a yearly income of $11,020 is very close to $0 (and with educational credits I suspect you would get back slightly more than you pay).

rikacomet 12y ago

another version: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/15/german-university-tuition-fees-abolished http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/15/german-universi... I basically think this is a very big news. It effects a lot of people. Though I think this only applies (and should) to domestic students. In our country (India) .. the Right to Education Act was a hot topic this year.. it still has to go a long way.. but it can learn from Germany's example of doing away with the fees altogether in Public Universities. Young people are the driving force behind the economy. But many fail to live up to their potential due to economic constraints. 1. Most Public Universities already run mostly upon Tax-Payers Money. So Burden is not that sudden, as one would think. 2. Expansions would be more scrutinized. We have to look at this in terms of Fixed and Variable/Recurring Cost. 3. Caution would be required on part of distributing the money corpus. Some colleges are in comfortable zone of the balance sheet, while some aren't. Those who are not, need to be looked after. 4. Students should still be charged for some "Extras" like Foreign Trips (optional in many colleges). I would love to know the finer details of how German Govt is handling the economics around this decision. This could be a Epic Success or Epic Fail. The dice has been cast.

Kliment 12y ago
That's from three and a half years ago and refers to a different state.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
pmr_ 12y ago
No dice has been cast. Things simply revert back to how they always have been. One important thing to know is that German universities are not handled by the federal government but on a state level (as all things educational) but there is a broader framework to keeps things aligned. Only some states decided to demand tuition for their universities in 2006 (some later) and most quickly stopped again after a few years.
0xFFC 12y ago
I cant understand this should part of your answer ? why should only applicable for domestic students?

sarciszewski 12y ago

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

shmerl 12y ago

Impressive. I wish US would do the same.

pjmlp 12y ago
From an European point of view, the US university system is crazy. In many European countries the value of state universities over private ones is very high regarded, that except for a few well renowned exceptions, private universities are seen as places where you buy a title, not earn one. As they mostly get the students that weren't able to go through the national exams for the state universities.
- zura 12y ago
  Yup, I always thought about top US universities as rich kids clubs.
- malvim 12y ago
  This is EXACTLY the same situation as here in Brazil. Very few well renowned private universities, but the very best ones are the state universities.
- VLM 12y ago
  "places where you buy a title" We have public community college systems for this. The "night school" programs have tolerable rep, although associate degrees are vocationally worthless in the economy usually there are well established credit transfer programs. The day students are the ones who partied too hard to get into a "better" school or people with severe financial or personal issues. Or weirdos like me. I have an economically worthless associates degree in electronics from the very early 90s, but another way to look at it is I only paid about $4K cash out of pocket for 56 transfer credits which is about $70/credit. I work near a private regionally well regarded engineering school and their optimistic web page claims $47240/yr total today in 2014 (certainly real world would cost more) which works out to about $1475/credit. (edited well this is embarrassing, I didn't correct for 2014 tuition at the community college where I got the A.S. in electronics in the early 90s. 2014 fall tuition is $125.85/credit, $4.50 mandatory minimum materials fee per class, $7.55 student activity mandatory fee, $6/semester mandatory accident liability policy fee. Shockingly they got rid of their technology fee and parking permit fee, nice. So about $140/credit in the fall of 2014, to compare apples to apples).

s_dev 12y ago

Whilst tuition fees in Ireland have not really risen - registration fees have gone from €200 to €3,000 over the 08-14'recession. In the UK fees have also risen. Finland and Denmark are free. I'm not that familiar with Southern or Eastern Europe. I think free third level institutions are important but I'm not opposed to the "free now tax later after certain pay threshold" education systems like Australia. Also [image] this: https://i.imgur.com/SXNtYyi.jpg https://i.imgur.com/SXNtYyi.jpg taken from corrosponding reddit thread is also relevant. It illustrates tuition fees in Europe.

dasboth 12y ago
Technically not all university education is free in Hungary. If you don't get the required grades to get in but your grades are above a certain threshold you can pay tuition fees and go on the course.
xyzzyz 12y ago
In the University of Warsaw, Poland, the only compulsory fees are $30 for registration, and $35 to get your diploma nicely bound. Well, come to think of it, you can even skip the binding.
icebraining 12y ago
A problem with that graphic is that it's not adjusted to the local purchasing power. 1000€/year is very different for someone who earns, say, 1440€/month (minimum wage in France) compared to someone who earns 505€/month (minimum wage here in Portugal).
_of 12y ago
Sweden is also free. Plus you get 1100 SEK/month in assistance from the government.
- Tehnix 12y ago
  You get a nice 5900 DKK/Month (7217 SEK or 1000$) here in Denmark :)

cmdkeen 12y ago

There's a big difference between no tuition fees and "free" education. All this means is that the cost of education is passed on to all tax payers. Now this can be justified, there is utility in having an educated workforce and society. However when everyone is paying there is a need to have a decision about how many people need that education to provide the benefits everyone gets. The UK is seeing these problems with 40% of school leavers going to university. There aren't enough jobs for graduates and we are way past the point of marginal returns in terms of social or cultural advancement. Personally I much prefer the idea of fees and student loans. Not US style versions of either. In the UK they are effectively a graduate tax that you may pay off in time, they don't harm your credit rating and repayments are a percentage of your income about a relatively high amount (close to the average salary).

edent 12y ago
They don't harm your credit rating, but... * You have to declare them when trying to get a mortgage (or any other loan) and so may reduce the amount you are leant. * If you go bankrupt - the loan does not go away. * Want to launch a funky startup? Now the graduates you want to work for you start demanding more money because a higher percentage now goes back to the Student Loan Company. I fought hard against the introduction of fees when they were introduced in the UK. In 1998 they were set at £1k a year - we said it was a slippery slope and were dismissed as paranoid. Fees in the UK are now up to £9k per year.
- cmdkeen 12y ago
  All of those things act like any other tax. That's all it is, a tax you may one day stop paying. A mortgage is dependent on your ability to repay, i.e. your net income, if the income tax rate went up then mortgage companies would also reduce the amount they would lend you. The alternatives are either a graduate tax - which has all of the issues you mention, except you never stop paying it, so potentially pay far more than the cost of your education - or general taxation in which case the people who didn't go to university (generally less well off) are paying for your degree.
  - 12y ago

jiggy2011 12y ago

Has there been any extensive research done on relationship between university fees and social mobility? On one hand it seems obvious that if you reduce costs of attending university you remove a barrier that would prevent economically disadvantaged people from attending. But on the other hand, university students, especially those at the best universities disproportionately come from better economic backgrounds and this seems to be true everywhere. In this case it doesn't seem fair to tax people who are poor to pay for something that is mainly of benefit to the rich. In the UK we have a student loan system where students do not have to pay back loans unless they earn over a threshold amount, so in theory there is nothing to prevent a poor person going to university regardless of how high the fees are.

Retric 12y ago
The economy is not zero sum and educated people on average make more. So, the net cost over time for subsidizing education is probably a small fraction of the sticker price. Or possibly it ends up paying for it's self.
- jiggy2011 12y ago
  But if they do make more, does it not make sense for the university grad to pay that cost after they have graduated?
  - Cthulhu_ 12y ago
    Well they do, but indirectly, via higher income taxes (because higher pay). The Dutch school system uses what you're suggesting actually; the government offers scholarships to all students, which is effectively a (low-interest) loan; if you finish your education, that loan or part thereof (depending on whether you took an extra loan, it's complicated) is forfeited, i.e. you don't have to pay it back. The remainder can be paid off in monthly terms, but the amount you have to pay off is determined based on how much money you earn. If you are unable to get a good enough job to pay back that loan, it's forfeited after 15 or 25 years (I think it used to be 15 and they upped it recently). It's kinda complicated though, and they had some heavy cuts in the system a while ago due to the economy - which IMHO is a huge shame, since a lot of students won't choose a higher education now, causing university studies to only be in reach of the rich once again.

malvim 12y ago

The federal and state universities here in Brazil have always been free. In fact, most people here use the terms "public" as a synonym for "free of charge", when talking about education. I think this is great, but it is not "education for everyone" as sometimes it's touted to be. The problem we have is not about paying for college education, but in being able to pass the entry exams. Even though the public higher-education institutions are free of any tuition fees, an enormous part of their students is still composed of upper-middle-class kids, whose parents could afford the high-priced private middle and high schools. It's great we have free public schools, but the inclusion they should provide is still a long ways of becoming true.

taejo 12y ago

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

vapourismo 12y ago
400€ per year or per semester? Where? I am at the Institute of Technology in Berlin and I payed 290.37€ this semester, which includes 179.40€ for public transport.
- andreasklinger 12y ago
  so you paid 80€ more ?
  - katbyte 12y ago
    > 290.37€ this semester, which includes 179.40€ ~110€ less
  - heinrich5991 12y ago
    No, he pays ~110€ less.
- taejo 12y ago
  Per year.
garagemc2 12y ago
Hey quick question - are comp sci courses in Germany taught in English throughout?
- 2ion 12y ago
  No, it depends on the university. The predominant language of teaching in undergraduate courses in Germany is still German. However, the amount of course offerings in English language is increasing. The most common model now should be that a few classes each semester are being offered in English, which are often being taught by visiting professors or guest lecturers.

GolfyMcG 12y ago

Why has no one brought up how the top German university is "ranked" 55th on this list: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2013-14/world-ranking http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-ranki... I'm not saying this list is definitive or that the US tuition prices are reasonable, but it stands to reason that the best of the best of anything is going to be exponentially more expensive than it's next closest competitors.

Glan1984 12y ago
Because that list was made by Brits. I bet a German made list would look different ;). Anyone who values lists like this is a fool. Just saying.
jbangert 12y ago
Without going into the metrics that these rankings use and their flaws, the German university system unfortunately focuses less on "elite" universitities, instead trying to create a good average experience, so most of the universities are actually fairly on-par with each other in terms of funding, and therefore also research output, teaching, etc. That being said, my experience with high-prestige american universities has been that the expense has very little to do, and feeds very little into, the quality of the education. US universities are expensive because they have massive bureaucratic overhead and are funded through a peculiar model (Government gives money to people, which give money to universities). Also, Germany used to have no tuition until the mid-2000s or so, and only some places introduced it, and it was really, really low.
- tegeek 12y ago
  I think you are right. Sweden is more or less has the same model as German when it comes to higher education. There are no particular "elite" universities & most of the universities are more or less on the same level when it comes to funding, research output, teaching etc. Even as an International student back in 2008, I paid 0$ in tuition fees & used to pay 30$ as student union fee per study term/semester and have best study experience I can imagine.

xtc 12y ago

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

raverbashing 12y ago

I find the "American model" and the "European model" dichotomy very interesting. American model: individually centered, "pay for what you want", development is driven by small companies and individual decisions (most of the time). "Works for me" European model: centered on the community, social support, development by committee/government/consensus. Slow but directed improvements Germany could not have produced Facebook. But they have a great train network. France puts satellites on orbit and does the TGV. In the US you have millionaires came out of "nothing" (of course, from nice universities, nice contacts, etc), people jumping at opportunities, while in Europe this would take 2 meetings, 3 viability studies and 4 months. So, while I'm more towards in favour of the European model someone has to ask themselves what are they missing. Yes, they have a very nice and educated workforce that will be ready to work and be very productive at a big company where they will work hard, sure, but will come out with the least amount of new ideas (that's not their job), and will do the things most likely to be accepted by the majority.

rbehrends 12y ago
> Germany could not have produced Facebook. "Could not" is a bit strong. "Unlikely" I'd agree with. But my rationale is different: German businesses traditionally have a strong bias towards B2B models (esp. the "Mittelstand") and startups eschew consumer-facing business models. For example, America has Microsoft, Germany has SAP.
ionised 12y ago
The way you describe it makes the EU system sound preferable.
- bharath28 12y ago
  This. And that somehow a viable combination of the two approaches can't be built.
spydum 12y ago
that is one of the great part of being human: diversity of thought. it's a shame most people are convinced that they are "right", and assume there can only be one right model. Leads to people trying to establish these monocultures, which usually fail (over time).

etattva 12y ago

All american kids complaining about Tuition, move to Germany now

pranayairan 12y ago

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

pmontra 12y ago

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

thejdude 12y ago
I think all German states have abolished tuition fees after lots of public outcry about them (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studiengeb%C3%BChr#Deutschland http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studiengeb%C3%BChr#Deutschland). It says that Niedersachsen decided to abolish fees for the 2014-2015 semester as the last state in Germany to do so.

hippich 12y ago

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

0xFFC 12y ago
why people down voted such good idea ?

thedaveoflife 12y ago

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

DasIch 12y ago
The student discounts you get isn't really worth it. The semester ticket for public transport though costs about 1€ a day. That is incredibly cheap compared to the regular tickets. Other universities have the same problem though. In NRW you can practically travel through the entire state with a semester ticket at roughly the same price.
- thedaveoflife 12y ago
  The Studenten-BahnCard saves you a ton of money on train travel too

PythonicAlpha 12y ago

It should be noted here, that in the past (10-20 years ago), Germany did not have any tuition fees ... and fared very well with this model for many decades. Only lately, because the German govnmt wanted to save the costs for the universities, they invented the fees with the argument, that with more funding, the quality of education could be better. But many universities just used the money to cover costs, that where not covered any more from the money they got from the country. So, essentially it was a cost reduction program to reduce costs for the state finance ... thus freeing money that could go to banks and big companies. The system was not well received by the students and also some German countries dropped the program, thus putting some pressure on the others, since the students prefered the universities without fees. I guess, that was the reason now, that the last country dropped the fees. In my opinion, countries like GB make a big error by forcing enormous fees unto students. In the result, the students which do not come from millionaires houses are either at the mercy of the banks for decades or many people that well could study, just do not. Thus the nation looses many talents (in both outcomes).

shamney 12y ago
student loans in the UK are provided by the government at relatively low interest rates. There is a minimum earning threshold before repayment can begin and a hard limit on the total proportion of income that can be taken for repayment. So no one is "at the mercy of the banks" and only a small number of people have been discouraged from attending university.
- PythonicAlpha 12y ago
  > and only a small number of people have been discouraged from attending university. How do you know that. Have you asked the people? I doubt what you say (not about the loans, I guess you know better than I, but in the US people are really at the mercy of the banks). Even, when only few are discouraged, you have a loss. The UK gvnmt should know: You can't have both: Save money and have good education for all without losses. When many use the loans, the savings for the UK are limited, since not all will be able to repay the money in full. Also the UK looses the money from the people that did not attend university. And it looses innovation -- all things that can not be calculated, but might finally well excell the pennies, the UK saves now. It even might loose the future (UK already has nearly only banking left as most important industry, so innovation would be really needed to revive the former proud "empire").

davesque 12y ago

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

omot 12y ago

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

conkrete 12y ago

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

tyoma 12y ago

I see lots of envy from US and UK based people, but not any thought given to the great opportunity: Germany accepts international students. Why not go to a German university and get a quality education paid for by the German taxpayer? As a bonus, you'll get to learn German for free.

dmix 12y ago
Is it even covered for international students? In Canada international students pay much higher rates for tuition. About $10k for a program that might cost Canadians $3k. It's a huge racket. I'd be surprised if Germans decided to do the same, as well as taxpayers being will to pay for foreigners education.
- tyoma 12y ago
  Last time I was in Germany I talked to a Thai gentleman who was an international student there. He said all of his tuition was covered, and that it was standard policy. Some Googling seems to confirm thats the case, but someone from Germany should really clarify.
  - whyever 12y ago
    Usually there are no tuition fees for anyone, including international students. (You have to pay administration fees which are a few 100 euros a semester.)
- krrrh 12y ago
  Yeah, international students pay the same tuition/fees in Germany as Germans, which is to say next to nothing. I know several people that have, or are doing graduate degrees here. Usually there is 100-200€ in fees per semester but that often includes a transit/intercity train pass within the state. It struck me as odd at first too, coming from Canada where certain programs at certain universities take as many international students as they can to subsidize the rest of the program. Keep in mind this usually (but not always) involves passing the TestDAF to prove German fluency.
- 12y ago

robomartin 12y ago

Not sure free education provides absolutely net positive results. More data might be required. If you look at a country like Argentina, where university level education has been free probably since the country was founded you see issues. Running 10x more people through universities does not create 10x more prosperity. Lots of Medical Doctors in Argentina almost starve. Engineers drive taxis or own pizza joints. The only way some of these people can reliably make a solid change to their lives is to leave the country and seek work elsewhere. In that case the net effect within the nation is still negative. Again, not sure how to think about something like this other than to operate under my admittedly preconceived notion that most people don't value or work hard at anything that is free. I could be wrong.

0xFFC 12y ago
just having free universities is different than good free universities ! I can't imagine a good graduate starve ! they will create job ! but teaching just math and history and memorizing them and saying these people are well educated is just big lie ! education should be free (and with financial fund for all students) but should be very very competitive (not for money , money should be available for all, good grade should be very competitive ) ! In this case many people will drop universities ! because they cannot afford such efforts ! and educated one will be really educated !
thejdude 12y ago
Free shouldn't mean that everybody attends college. Degree inflation sucks. I observe the same problem in Germany - more and more people attend school/university for more and more years, but don't turn out any brighter overall.

brkn 12y ago

I started paying around 250 Euro when starting my study at the university (2009). This term I had to pay aroung 290 Euro. The fee for the TU Berlin is composed of: Verwaltungsgebühr (gem. § 2 Abs. 7 BerlHG) (administrative fee) 50,00 € Beitrag zur Studierendenschaft (Contribution to the student body) 8,70 € Beitrag zum Studentenwerk (Contribution to the Student Services) 48,77 € Beitrag zum Semesterticket (Contribution to the semester ticket) 179,40 € Beitrag zum Sozialfonds zum Semesterticket (Contribution to the Social Fund for Semesterticket) 3,50 € = 290,37 € Of course it is still much cheaper than to study in other countries. But the fees are growing and you have to pay for the semester ticket, which is essentially a ticket for all public transportation in Berlin, even though you wouldn't need it. *Translated with Google Translator

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oscargrouch 12y ago
Google translator for German looks awesome; its not that good for Portuguese :/

dang 12y ago

From http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/feature-germanys-great-tuition-fees-u-turn/2011168.fullarticle http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/feature-germa... it's clear that tuition fees had only been around for a few years in Germany, were relatively low, and most states had already dropped them. Edit: I think we'll change the url to this article, because it's more substantive and not behind a paywall like http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article4213550.ece http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article42135... is.

jo_ 12y ago

I've been digging through this thread and can't seem to find any information on the impact of 'free tuition' on tuition costs. In the US, we saw an increase in loan availability result in a significant uptick in the price of attendance to universities. If the government is paying the cost of tuition, how is the cost of tuition kept in check? Disclaimer: I love the idea of free public education. I wish it would take hold in the US. My only concern is how Universities will react to being paid almost arbitrary amounts of money per-student.

ori_b 12y ago
> If the government is paying the cost of tuition, how is the cost of tuition kept in check? The government pays what it wants. If the government refuses to pay, what is the university going to do? It's not like it can compete with free.
PythonicAlpha 12y ago
I live in Germany and from my experience, the system of free education worked ~40 years or more (not counting the last years, that we had those fees, which where invented I guess in the 90s or 00s). We had excellent education for several decades without fees and it worked fine, until the gvnmts (not only the German) got the idea, that there are more important things than education (for example military, big corporations and banks). Of course you should not just "pay arbitrary amounts" to the universities but hold the people accountable for what they spent.
ginko 12y ago
> If the government is paying the cost of tuition, how is the cost of tuition kept in check? By the government negotiating costs? I'd say a single payer has more bargaining power than individual students. Same as with public healthcare.
- jo_ 12y ago
  I'd completely forgotten about the single-payer negotiation aspect. That makes sense.
12y ago

saool 12y ago

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

acadien 12y ago
I agree with everything said above, but what about the fact that society will always need plumbers, garbage collectors, fast food employees etc.? I'm not even sure that this is a counter point to what is mentioned above, just more thinking out loud. Is it possible to have a high functioning/efficient society in which there are no economic pressures to motivate people?
- rthomas6 12y ago
  If you believe some people, one day all those jobs will be automated away.
  - meentsbk 12y ago
    This video by C.G.P. Grey is, at least for me, thought-provoking on this matter: http://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU http://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU
    - iammyIP 12y ago
      nice video, i think its pretty much spot-on.
  - VBprogrammer 12y ago
    Garbage collection could be automated tomorrow if we wanted. Fast food is just a matter of us not trying hard enough but plumbers is a difficult one. Not saying it couldn't happen. Two scenarios I could see are everyone lives in a prefab home, when things start to go wrong you just replace it. That leaves all the plumbing to just cutting and bending pipes to pre-built designs and installing it in prearranged steps. I could see that being possible. Another interesting case could be that all houses are 3d printed, with cavities for plumbing printed right into the fabric of the building, and possibly sealed in someway.

SEJeff 12y ago

Do all professors become employed by the government then?

krylon 12y ago
In Germany (where I live, I am not sure how it works in other countries), that is how it works. There are some private universities, but not many (and they tend to focus on "cheap" subjects in the sense of "cheap to provide training" - training a medical doctor or a chemist apparently is far more expensive than training an MBA) - Professors teaching at private universities, are, of course, employed by those universities. If you want to work in academia, you will have to jump through lots of hoops, usually going from one temporary contract to another until you get tenure. But all along the way, you are technically employed by the government (more strictly, Professors are employed by the state government, not by the federal government, because education is the domain of the federal states. (Even more strictly speaking there are a few universities that are run by the military for educating their officers - those belong to the federal department of "defense", and the professors teaching there are employees of the federal government.)
- SEJeff 12y ago
  Wow totally jealous. I'm of German descent (last name: Schroeder, 3rd generation in the US), but we have it very bad in comparison. We have these parasitic institutions called "for profit" colleges that are typical capitalist greed. Their goal is to extract as much money out of students who can't do math so well and end up with unbelievably large loans. Most state ran colleges are respectable, but the most all of the best colleges in America are private or private "Ivy League" colleges. Becoming a professor requires a PHD and many years to attain tenure. I simply don't think the pay is competitive for public colleges vs private "for profit" colleges that are money making machines. Most of the best professors work for places you've likely heard of like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. None of those are state colleges. That being said, some state colleges are wonderful (USC is a great example). It is just different, and unfortunately a lot less of a possibility for much of America's working class. US primary and secondary schools are mandatory and free, but college/university (no differentiation in the US) are becoming prohibitively expensive for all of the lower class and much of the middle class. It is bad. The US has a few military colleges such as westpoint and the US Army War College, but those are only open to soldiers and officers, so are a different thing altogether. Note that I work in technology and didn't go to college. Not because I couldn't afford it, but because after 4 years of military service, I was able to trivially get a job in technology. I get paid to write code.

zwieback 12y ago

Another point: US universities look very different from German ones. I live in Corvallis (OSU) now but grew up and went to school in Stuttgart Germany. Compared to the German universities our US schools are country clubs: dorms, restaurants, coffee shops, fitness clubs, green spaces everywhere. Don't even get me started on the sports, it's an outrage how US schools have become sports franchises. I'm guessing most US students would be shocked by the reality of German public universities which basically consist of giant rooms with blackboards and there's not much general ed to speak of. At the graduate level it gets more interesting but that's in years 5-8. My first 4 years studying ME in Stuttgart were almost 100% lectures with a final exam at the end of the semester. Virtually no tutoring and very little corrected homework. You don't get what you don't pay for. On the other hand, you don't really get what you pay for in the US either since the universities have become so good at sucking up more and more student loan money without really improving on their core mission of providing higher education.

ibebrett 12y ago
That sounds perfect to me (an american who tends to like learning through MOOCs)
- personalcompute 12y ago
  I have to wonder if there is anything like this available in the US aside from MOOCs? I haven't explored far, but even the ostensibly bare bones community colleges I've looked at were trying to emulate the typical inclusive social experience model.
mathattack 12y ago
Don't even get me started on the sports, it's an outrage how US schools have become sports franchises. This pisses me off too. It's why I don't give money to my Sports Franchise undergrad.
- skinnybatch 12y ago
  +1 I remember my mother speaking to some college admissions person at a semi-prestigious school in Pennsylvania, many years back when I was in the throws of applying. When speaking to some admissions confusion with respect to my high school, the guy said, "Well frankly, it's not called the Ivy League because of its academics." That's always stuck with me. Athletic scholarships? You betcha. Academic scholarships? What are those?

Havoc 12y ago

Hardly a u-turn. They went from no fees, to negligible fees (uproar) to no fees. Also note that "fees" in the German context is a little bit different than other countries. e.g. Some of the compulsory costs are the equivalent to a transport season pass. Whilst I've got mixed feelings about that it sure seems more tangible that X amount of money disappearing into the general varsity fund.

awendt 12y ago

I'm surprised no one brought up the bigger picture of which types of education Germans pay for and which they don't. While going to university has been free for a long time in Germany (and will be again according to this article), German parents pay for kindergarten and day care. In most countries, it's the other way around and I'd gladly pay for my kids to go to university than pay for the much more basic education before primary school. I paid up to 500 Euros a months for my son's kindergarten. (This is is maximum amount, but that's another story...) This is why I don't get that students were so eager to demonstrate against the introduction of tuition, claiming education is then reserved for rich people. The same argument could be brought up against payments for day care, but no one will acknowledge that. (I guess this is because students are willing to plan for family after the degree.) Reversing this situation would result in better integration of kids from families with immigrant background which is a far better goal than to make higher education more accessible, regardless of money.

sveme 12y ago
You are obviously right - kindergarten should be free for all. But you establish a false dichotomy: why exchange free university with free kindergarten? Why not have both? You could certainly argue with limited budget availability, but in the end it's a societal/political decision.
- awendt 12y ago
  I'm not saying I don't want both :) All I'm saying: If budget is the issue, I'm all for kindergarten. If it's not an issue, make everything free.

ajuc 12y ago

Poland has both paid and free universities, state-run universities are free (but just for the daily courses, there are also evening courses and weekend courses that are paid). Free courses are paid by taxes, and universities have a limit on how much students they can admit on paid courses depending on how much they admit on free courses. There are also private universities with just paid courses, but they are much worse quality (they admit almost anoyone for money, so better students go to the state universities to study for free, and worse students only get admited to the paid ones). The end result is - almost everybody go to the university and do M.A. in something. The education is usually OK, but not great (especially on the worse universities). Everybody have M.A. so it isn't advantage in the job market, just a requirement (there were postman job offerings requiring M.A. for example :) ). The problem is - Polish universities don't do much science, they are mostly for education, people call them M.A. factories.

CurtMonash 12y ago

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

alexweber 12y ago

Could someone please post the full text of the article…