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I wonder if American students fleeing their country to save on education tax is more than anecdotical. BTW, the article mentions Germany, but isn't education c

I wonder if American students fleeing their country to save on education tax is more than anecdotical. BTW, the article mentions Germany, but isn't education cheap in most European countries?

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- interdrift 12y ago
  That highly depends on the university and the country.
- brazzy 12y ago
  Sources? Because I'm pretty sure that's wrong: http://www.studyineurope.eu/tuition-fees http://www.studyineurope.eu/tuition-fees
  - the_rosentotter 12y ago
    I based this on the rules in the countries that I investigated some time ago (among them Sweden and Denmark), according to your link they seem to be the only ones to charge such high fees for non-residents. Thanks for the correction.
  - pluma 12y ago
    That site's information about Germany is outdated. There was a €500 fee (the legal maximum) for a while after a law was passed that allowed universities to charge it. That was followed by protests and a few years later all universities have completely dropped it. There is a marginal fee (<€300 for most universities) that is mostly used to fund the student council (e.g. services like cafés and various co-operations, like student tickets for regional public transit), but that already existed before. The €500 tuition fee was paid on top of that and directly went to the university itself. The >50% of the regular fees that goes to the student council is also set by the council (e.g. it went up by a few euros in Cologne when the student ticket was extended to all of North-Rhine Westphalia instead of just the local public transit union -- which was decided by a direct vote of the students themselves). Also, the public scholarship (BAföG) AFAIK didn't cover the €500 tuition fee, so some universities advertised student loans offered by publicly owned banks (which would only cover the €500 tuition fee, not the regular base fee). Anyway, the tuition fees were rather short-lived. Except for the distance learning university of Hagen (the only distance learning university in Germany, and the only non-private distance learning higher-education institution in Germany) which charges an even lower base fee but then additionally charges for the course materials (making it slightly more expensive for full-time study), the fees are generally much lower than €500 these days.
FanaHOVA 12y ago
Here in Italy (Rome exactly) we pay around 1000-2000€ a year of tuition, but that's really what it's worth it. The education is good, but the structures are awful, from labs to classes and lecture halls. I've visited Caltech, Stanford, NYU and Columbia while travelling and they're light years ahead. If I was born in the US I'd never move to Europe to study anything tech related, being in a major university like Stanford or MiT just gives you so many connections and makes you able to experiment beyond your regular coursework. Just like someone said on a post here a while ago, the difference between you and your friend who studied at Duke is that Tim Cook is just a phone call away because they walked to class together every morning.
- Kephael 12y ago
  The issue with this analogy is that schools like Stanford and MIT aren't very large at the undergraduate level and have admissions rates lower than any school in Europe let alone Italy when looking at undergraduate admissions rates. The undergraduate admission process at these schools is much less academic focused than a European university as well.
  - FanaHOVA 12y ago
    Here in Italy there's not even an admission process. You just sign up basically. This leads to a definite decrease in the quality level of teaching, around 80% of my class failed discrete mathematics and calculus and that's with a very short curriculum and fairly easy exams. Professors then have to slow down because no one is following and it just gets worse.
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- yodsanklai 12y ago
  You can't compare a random Italian university with Stanford and MIT. There are extremely selective schools in Europe too. In Italy, if I'm not mistaken, the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa is quite reputable.

I wonder if American students fleeing their country to save on education tax is more than anecdotical. BTW, the article mentions Germany, but isn't education cheap in most European countries?

deleted 12y ago

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interdrift 12y ago
That highly depends on the university and the country.
brazzy 12y ago
Sources? Because I'm pretty sure that's wrong: http://www.studyineurope.eu/tuition-fees http://www.studyineurope.eu/tuition-fees
- the_rosentotter 12y ago
  I based this on the rules in the countries that I investigated some time ago (among them Sweden and Denmark), according to your link they seem to be the only ones to charge such high fees for non-residents. Thanks for the correction.
- pluma 12y ago
  That site's information about Germany is outdated. There was a €500 fee (the legal maximum) for a while after a law was passed that allowed universities to charge it. That was followed by protests and a few years later all universities have completely dropped it. There is a marginal fee (<€300 for most universities) that is mostly used to fund the student council (e.g. services like cafés and various co-operations, like student tickets for regional public transit), but that already existed before. The €500 tuition fee was paid on top of that and directly went to the university itself. The >50% of the regular fees that goes to the student council is also set by the council (e.g. it went up by a few euros in Cologne when the student ticket was extended to all of North-Rhine Westphalia instead of just the local public transit union -- which was decided by a direct vote of the students themselves). Also, the public scholarship (BAföG) AFAIK didn't cover the €500 tuition fee, so some universities advertised student loans offered by publicly owned banks (which would only cover the €500 tuition fee, not the regular base fee). Anyway, the tuition fees were rather short-lived. Except for the distance learning university of Hagen (the only distance learning university in Germany, and the only non-private distance learning higher-education institution in Germany) which charges an even lower base fee but then additionally charges for the course materials (making it slightly more expensive for full-time study), the fees are generally much lower than €500 these days.

FanaHOVA 12y ago

Here in Italy (Rome exactly) we pay around 1000-2000€ a year of tuition, but that's really what it's worth it. The education is good, but the structures are awful, from labs to classes and lecture halls. I've visited Caltech, Stanford, NYU and Columbia while travelling and they're light years ahead. If I was born in the US I'd never move to Europe to study anything tech related, being in a major university like Stanford or MiT just gives you so many connections and makes you able to experiment beyond your regular coursework. Just like someone said on a post here a while ago, the difference between you and your friend who studied at Duke is that Tim Cook is just a phone call away because they walked to class together every morning.

Kephael 12y ago
The issue with this analogy is that schools like Stanford and MIT aren't very large at the undergraduate level and have admissions rates lower than any school in Europe let alone Italy when looking at undergraduate admissions rates. The undergraduate admission process at these schools is much less academic focused than a European university as well.
- FanaHOVA 12y ago
  Here in Italy there's not even an admission process. You just sign up basically. This leads to a definite decrease in the quality level of teaching, around 80% of my class failed discrete mathematics and calculus and that's with a very short curriculum and fairly easy exams. Professors then have to slow down because no one is following and it just gets worse.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
yodsanklai 12y ago
You can't compare a random Italian university with Stanford and MIT. There are extremely selective schools in Europe too. In Italy, if I'm not mistaken, the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa is quite reputable.