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> Education in Europe is not free. You pay with your qualifications. If your university grades are not good enough, you go out fast. Could you be a little mor

> Education in Europe is not free. You pay with your qualifications. If your university grades are not good enough, you go out fast. Could you be a little more specific? The size of Europe, America and Asia is too huge for statements like that. There are definitely universities in Europe that are more similar to some in the US than other universities in Europe. I'm a student in Sweden and I have not experienced anything that supports the quote above.

Maakuth 12y ago
It's the same in Finland, at least in universities. If you don't pass your courses, the state stops paying the student benefits[1], but you can stay at the university. There is another, very low number of courses you need to pass every year in order to stay in, but that is very low indeed, it's only meant to keep registers clean of people not studying at all. 1: That's right, Finns are paid to study. I think students in most of the Nordic countries are. edit: formatting
- userulluipeste 12y ago
  "Finns are paid to study. I think students in most of the Nordic countries are." There are scholarships (all over Europe) that depend on acquiring a minimal number of Bologna-credits, and those (at least in some countries) existed since the foundation of the higher education itself.
  - vidarh 12y ago
    In most (all? not sure) of the Nordic countries it's not scholarships (well, you have scholarships too), but at least used to be blanket grants to everyone that qualifies for a university place, combined with cheap loans. The grants when I studied in Norway were not huge, but they were unconditional for some number of years as long as you could document that you were still studying (basically it was sufficient to sign up to a couple of courses and attending the exams, whether or not you passed). This was 20 years ago - details may have changed. I lived on my grants + student loan for the first year of my first startup, by continuing to sign up for a couple of courses which I didn't actually study for (attended may be two lectures...)
    - Maakuth 12y ago
      Yes, this is indeed the case. For a typical university student, you get a grant of 335,32€ a month and a up to 201,60€ for residence (up to 80% of the your rent). And up to 400€ a month of government-guaranteed cheap student loan. If you are skimpy, it's just about enough to get along.
      - Squarel 12y ago
        In Denmark I get around €750 per month from the government as a student, and I can take another €400 euro or so as a very low interest loan if I want. I can also apply for assistance with rent as needed.
- htns 12y ago
  Actually, it is also sort of the opposite in Finland. The student grants are smaller than unemployment benefits etc. If you just stay at home doing nothing you are eligible for more money than if you enroll as a student.
  - clarry 12y ago
    And I'm thinking of dropping out because of this. I'm just accumulating debt because the student's benefits are not enough for me to live on. The quality of teaching in my uni is really quite shit and they've seriously "compacted" important courses (e.g. in math) and it looks like most students in my group are not leaning anything at all, nor are they expected to. It's quite demotivating, even depressing.
    - htns 12y ago
      Don't forget that starting next year, you will no longer be able to reapply to any Finnish universities if you have been accepted to one before. I would at least get a bachelor's degree so it will be easier to apply to universities abroad if you ever want to continue your education.
      - clarry 12y ago
        Technically speaking I haven't been accepted into one, because I cannot apply without secondary education. So I'm paying to study in one. That ought to change, come next semester. But I don't know if I want to waste two or three more years on this crap.
gambiting 12y ago
I know how engineering courses look like in Poland. Universities are 100% free, but they have absolutely no qualms about kicking out weaker students. Electrical engineering course at any of the largest universities in Poland will enroll 300-400 people,but 200 of them will fail the first year. The last year is usually finished by <10 people on time, there is plenty of people taking resits for years, and it's not uncommon for exams to be so hard that they have 100% failure rate. I have several friends studying engineering in Poland and well, first of all you need to pass all of your assignments to be able to take the exam(if you failed any of your practicals or assignments you are not even allowed to take the exam), and then like I've said it's not uncommon that out of 20 people taking the exam all 20 fail. In contrast, I studied in UK and getting through university at an Engineering course was very easy if you didn't care about grades too much. You could even fail an exam completely and still be allowed to continue, which is unthinkable in Poland. The main difference is, that in Poland all that matters is the diploma,not the grades you got, while in UK a diploma with a third or 2-2 grade is nearly worthless. So I think that Universities in Poland are much more careful about actually letting people graduate, while in UK pretty much anyone can graduate,but poor grades make their education worthless.
- DogeDogeDoge 12y ago
  i finished AGH in Krakow and i approve this message :D lol
  - Paul_S 12y ago
    I did a CS course at AGH too. I had well over 100 people on my first year (couldn't physically fit them into some lecture halls), after first semester this halved. Second year there were fewer than 40 of us even after transfers. I think it's the most fair way to run courses.
- userulluipeste 12y ago
  "So I think that Universities in Poland are much more careful about actually letting people graduate, while in UK pretty much anyone can graduate,but poor grades make their education worthless." It's about the philosophy behind it. In Poland (and Romania too, BTW), an institution defends its reputation first and foremost. Somewhere else, it's more business-oriented and the reputation is kept more by marketing than by other means. That is also how "top universities" classification is made - by counting only the highest results, not all of it. It's a nice hack on human mind, as both the students' and the average employers' bells ring when they think of those "top" universities, abstracting away a lot of "uninteresting" information.

Maakuth 12y ago

It's the same in Finland, at least in universities. If you don't pass your courses, the state stops paying the student benefits[1], but you can stay at the university. There is another, very low number of courses you need to pass every year in order to stay in, but that is very low indeed, it's only meant to keep registers clean of people not studying at all. 1: That's right, Finns are paid to study. I think students in most of the Nordic countries are. edit: formatting

userulluipeste 12y ago
"Finns are paid to study. I think students in most of the Nordic countries are." There are scholarships (all over Europe) that depend on acquiring a minimal number of Bologna-credits, and those (at least in some countries) existed since the foundation of the higher education itself.
- vidarh 12y ago
  In most (all? not sure) of the Nordic countries it's not scholarships (well, you have scholarships too), but at least used to be blanket grants to everyone that qualifies for a university place, combined with cheap loans. The grants when I studied in Norway were not huge, but they were unconditional for some number of years as long as you could document that you were still studying (basically it was sufficient to sign up to a couple of courses and attending the exams, whether or not you passed). This was 20 years ago - details may have changed. I lived on my grants + student loan for the first year of my first startup, by continuing to sign up for a couple of courses which I didn't actually study for (attended may be two lectures...)
  - Maakuth 12y ago
    Yes, this is indeed the case. For a typical university student, you get a grant of 335,32€ a month and a up to 201,60€ for residence (up to 80% of the your rent). And up to 400€ a month of government-guaranteed cheap student loan. If you are skimpy, it's just about enough to get along.
    - Squarel 12y ago
      In Denmark I get around €750 per month from the government as a student, and I can take another €400 euro or so as a very low interest loan if I want. I can also apply for assistance with rent as needed.
htns 12y ago
Actually, it is also sort of the opposite in Finland. The student grants are smaller than unemployment benefits etc. If you just stay at home doing nothing you are eligible for more money than if you enroll as a student.
- clarry 12y ago
  And I'm thinking of dropping out because of this. I'm just accumulating debt because the student's benefits are not enough for me to live on. The quality of teaching in my uni is really quite shit and they've seriously "compacted" important courses (e.g. in math) and it looks like most students in my group are not leaning anything at all, nor are they expected to. It's quite demotivating, even depressing.
  - htns 12y ago
    Don't forget that starting next year, you will no longer be able to reapply to any Finnish universities if you have been accepted to one before. I would at least get a bachelor's degree so it will be easier to apply to universities abroad if you ever want to continue your education.
    - clarry 12y ago
      Technically speaking I haven't been accepted into one, because I cannot apply without secondary education. So I'm paying to study in one. That ought to change, come next semester. But I don't know if I want to waste two or three more years on this crap.

gambiting 12y ago

I know how engineering courses look like in Poland. Universities are 100% free, but they have absolutely no qualms about kicking out weaker students. Electrical engineering course at any of the largest universities in Poland will enroll 300-400 people,but 200 of them will fail the first year. The last year is usually finished by <10 people on time, there is plenty of people taking resits for years, and it's not uncommon for exams to be so hard that they have 100% failure rate. I have several friends studying engineering in Poland and well, first of all you need to pass all of your assignments to be able to take the exam(if you failed any of your practicals or assignments you are not even allowed to take the exam), and then like I've said it's not uncommon that out of 20 people taking the exam all 20 fail. In contrast, I studied in UK and getting through university at an Engineering course was very easy if you didn't care about grades too much. You could even fail an exam completely and still be allowed to continue, which is unthinkable in Poland. The main difference is, that in Poland all that matters is the diploma,not the grades you got, while in UK a diploma with a third or 2-2 grade is nearly worthless. So I think that Universities in Poland are much more careful about actually letting people graduate, while in UK pretty much anyone can graduate,but poor grades make their education worthless.

DogeDogeDoge 12y ago
i finished AGH in Krakow and i approve this message :D lol
- Paul_S 12y ago
  I did a CS course at AGH too. I had well over 100 people on my first year (couldn't physically fit them into some lecture halls), after first semester this halved. Second year there were fewer than 40 of us even after transfers. I think it's the most fair way to run courses.
userulluipeste 12y ago
"So I think that Universities in Poland are much more careful about actually letting people graduate, while in UK pretty much anyone can graduate,but poor grades make their education worthless." It's about the philosophy behind it. In Poland (and Romania too, BTW), an institution defends its reputation first and foremost. Somewhere else, it's more business-oriented and the reputation is kept more by marketing than by other means. That is also how "top universities" classification is made - by counting only the highest results, not all of it. It's a nice hack on human mind, as both the students' and the average employers' bells ring when they think of those "top" universities, abstracting away a lot of "uninteresting" information.