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How US students get a university degree for free in Germany
- Mithaldu 11y agoTo spare people the click after that dumb clickbait title: Germany only requires tuition fees of ~30-100€ per semester* from any student, regardless country of origin. * For administrative stuff and often includes public transit tickets. Also, previously (today even): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9656905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9656905
- Dewie3 11y agoOh man. 30-100€ per semester and not literally 0€ per semester? I feel so misled and cheated by that clickbait title. Do people have no shame?
- shkkmo 11y agoBut it includes a public transit pass as well :)
- kaybe 11y agoAnd an even better insurance against accidents for when you actually are at the university. It also covers travel to and from anything you do there. Oh, and we're funding the student council with a few euros as well.
- flippant 11y agoI pay that much for bus passes per semester.
- billforsternz 11y agoI don't think Mithaldu was simply being pedantic about the word "free".
- Florin_Andrei 11y agoIf you're a computer, then that's correct. If you're a human being and you understand that 100 euro is essentially free, especially when compared to the tuition in the US, then the conclusion is a bit different.
- billforsternz 11y agoExactly, you are agreeing with Mithaldu (and me).
- Mithaldu 11y agoThank you for being the only one to understand that the word free was not what i was complaining about. The replies to my post have been both amusing and horrifying, and you are a shining light in a sea of shortsightedness. :)
- billforsternz 11y agoYou're welcome, thanks.
- coldtea 11y agoNotice how both his, your initial and your second comment don't say anything else besides that the title is linkbait and that it says free where in fact you pay a very very small amount? You might have been complaining about something else besides free, but information about what would that be is totally absent from your comments.
- Mithaldu 11y agoFrankly, given the prevalence of clickbait on the internet in general, and the general savviness of the HM crowd, i did not even consider in the least that the nature of this clickbait could not be obvious to everyone. A bit of a mistake of mine. I've explained that nature in a comment a little further up. :)
- billforsternz 11y ago
- realityking 11y agoWhile you're obligated to pay it, none of that money actually goes to the university. It all goes to the student union and student services which are two legal bodies distinct from the university. So the education is free, you're just paying for some of the services (transportation, meals, housing, etc.) around it.
- aswanson 11y agoyou're just paying for some of the services (transportation, meals, housing, etc.) around it Heh, that's just a vague line item in a typical US college bill...(university activity fee, computer fee...). The system here is so extortionist on students. Sickening. Go Germany!
- tmalsburg2 11y agoThere is a lot more interesting stuff in the article than what you list. The title is central point of the article, I don't see why it's dumb.
- Mithaldu 11y agoBy shaping it in the form of a question asking "how?", the author makes it seems as if there is anything of any substance to the how. The reader who does not know that it's simply free will assume that there is something special about the students, or something special they might need to do and clicks on the link to find out what that special thing is. The bait is accepted, and the trap is sprung, ad impressions are achieved and the reader learns the banal truth: There is nothing special to do or be beyond being human beings and educated enough to be accepted by a german school. Stating outright in the title "All students get a university degree for free in Germany" would be honest and forthright, saving someone maybe a few minutes if they don't need to know anything more. But it is not used because it would result in less clicks for the author and less ad impressions. It is clickbait.
- tmalsburg2 11y agoI think you didn't read the article carefully enough. There is a precise list of things you have to do in order to get into a German university in the middle of the article. It's titled "How to apply in Germany." Also there is a lot of useful information about typical rents, expenses for groceries, etc. and there are a number of links to very rich resources with more details. I think this article is an excellent starting point for anyone who is considering to study in Germany.
- facepalm 11y ago"To cover rent, mandatory health insurance and other expenses, Hunter's mother sends him between $6,000-7,000 each year." That's actually a little bit low for Munich. I think two or three times that would be more realistic to cover living expenses.
- mesh1123 11y agoAs an anecdote, i live on €6000 in Munich. It's definitely the minimum, but possible when living in university accommodation & and cooking your own food.
- facepalm 11y agoImpressive :-) Actually I started out with 500€/month in Munich, but that was 22 years ago. And I ended up doing side jobs. Prices must have gotten up since then.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- 317070 11y agoDitto. I studied for about €500 per month all expenses included in both Belgium and France. This was between 2007 and 2012. You can't live big, but I ate healthy, never skipped a beer/wine or had to make extra money.
- revelation 11y agoIf you get one of the many student jobs for 10 hours a week, you can pretty much double that.
- SEJeff 11y agoPerhaps we should send more kids to Europe for schooling to see how a civil society lives, then bring them back after graduating to fix the problems with America. win/win :)
- interactiv 11y agoEuropeans have their own sets of problems ,believe me, don't paint everything all black or all white. Granted almost free education is something great.
- Dewie3 11y ago> Europeans have their own sets of problems ,believe me, Yes, and arguably 50 different sets of problems.
- Florin_Andrei 11y ago> Yes, and arguably 50 different sets of problems. Pretty much like the US, after all.
- Dewie3 11y agoNo.
- MrTonyD 11y agoThe article ended with the students saying that they planned to stay in Germany - they didn't want to go back to a country like the US where their children might be bankrupted paying for their education.
- SEJeff 11y agoFWIW, I dated a German exchange student in highschool (in the US). When asked why she came to the US, she said her dad sent all of her siblings to the US to take driver's ed and get their US license as it was valid in Germany. Apparently it is many thousands of dollars^Weuros to get all of the necessary requirements completed to get a German drivers license. I didn't mean to come off quite like I originally phrased that, more of it might be interesting for the perspective gained. Also, when I was in Berlin for 2 weeks (the GNOME/KDE Desktop summit) several years ago, I'd have stayed as well had I not been married. Wonderful country (and my family is racially of german descent so...)
- StillBored 11y agoTruly shocking they haven't discovered "out of country tuition". That is the big scam here in the US, most of the state schools have out of state fee's that are 2x-5x as high as the instate ones. The excuse of course is saving money and how the students parents don't pay taxes (ignoring they pay taxes elsewhere). The best part of course, is the lame/insane rules they come up with to determine if your instate or out of state. Mostly because in the US just having a utility bill from a rental or what not is enough to transfer a drivers license/residency. Amusingly enough, most of these states actually require in state vehicle registrations for said students in order to get the tax money...
- matt4077 11y agoFor students from other EU countries, that would probably constitute illegal discrimination. For other students, they probably don't care. Or it's actually seen as an investment in the future as these students often stick around, meaning you get a well-educated young citizen and didn't even have to pay for the first 12 years of her education.
- theVirginian 11y agoPart of the reason for raising tuition is also to discourage out of state students from applying so that they can provide a relatively high quality of education to state's residences that is accessible to many of the state's residents. Georgia does this, as well as some other schools.
- joe_the_user 11y agoMost US states used to do that. Now, at the least, the University Of California prefers out-of-state and out-of-country just for the extra tuition and charges tuition that's not really accessible for in-state students.
- noipv4 11y agoThere should also be an article on how Asian (Indians, Chinese, Filipino, etc) students get graduate degree for free in the USA. Thanks US for my free Masters and PHD ;)
- backtobecks 11y agoermm... elaborate a bit more on this? please?
- arjn 11y agoResearch Assistant, Teaching Assistant. Thats usually how. (its not really for free)
- montecarl 11y agoIn science and engineering, PhD students are typically paid a salary and have their tuition waived. This is mostly funded by the federal government though the NSF, DOE, DOD, etc.
- mehrzad 11y agoI thought this applied to the humanities, arts, and social sciences too.
- theVirginian 11y agoI think the stipend is much lower but yes. It also depends on the university how much the stipend is. At some schools it might only be like 15k which is not enough to live so you would have to find some way to work also.
- kaybe 11y agoIt's the same in Germany. Getting a PhD is basically a job.
- _of 11y ago
- marianov 11y agoSee Argentina. Free college, university, med school, engineering, PHDs, doctorates, etc. Other problems though.
- frugalmail 11y agoThe best part, they have like 100 holidays a year. That's like 1/3rd the work everywhere else :P
- vfclists 11y agoIt only shows the American political establishment prefers a capitalist system that impoverishes white people rather than have a fair social system that has the side effect of benefiting blacks and latinos as well. Ditto Brazil.
- dylanjermiah 11y agoYou are mistaken, the American system is certainly not true free market capitalism. It is crony capitalism.
- ebfe 11y agoCould you provide an example of a country with a >10% black population that has a social system we should emulate?
- joe_the_user 11y agoI want to go to a free! country, like Cuba, I mean Germany, I mean the Unite States, I mean Russia, I mean Ecuador ... oh help me out guys.
- kudu 11y agoIs it possible to do this for Canadian students? I don't see Canada listed on the admission assessment page.
- frugalmail 11y agoCanada isn't state #51?
- keyboard_jedi 11y agoWhy in the world did I go to college in the US?? I hate that the US education system is so capitalistic and not out to provide for the citizens of this country! Wish I would've included colleges outside the US in my college making decision..
- aswanson 11y agoI made the same mistake, it's not your fault. If you graduated in the pre-www era, as I did, the options presented to you as a 17 year old kid were probably very limited; it's almost as if we don't acknowledge universities exist outside the U.S. in the typical middle-class education-option experience. Very narrow world view.
- tracker1 11y agoI think that a lot of the legal changes to student loan funding from the 90's are really showing their ugly heads today. They are exempt from a lot of protections other forms of debt offer. Not to mention the effect of widely available loans (and insurance for that matter) have on an industry's pricing structures. It allows for whole new paths of corruption, overcharging and overspending. That's not to say every school operates like the University of Phoenix and the like... a lot of community colleges offer good education, while not being overtly expensive. Some universities and state colleges are a bit of a mix, and a lot of funding comes from various sources which bleed into expectations, costs and funding. That doesn't even go into scholarship programs and grants. While I agree with the tenant that everyone should have access to higher education, I'm pretty sure that our approach should have been better.
- jguegant 11y agoFrench here, the tuitions are close to 0 in Finland and France too (granted that you learn French). Our parents pay up to 50% (I don't have the exact percentage) of various taxes based on their salaries and daily life goods, and we as children will do the same. It makes sense that our government rewards us in some way: health care for free, school for free, retirement... In Europe, the government avoids you to shoot yourself by managing part of your money for the well being of the society. In return, we may look less rich by looking at our bank balance. If you take a 3500 $ Swedish salary with all the taxes applied, your life level might be equivalent as a 7000 $ salary in US. Beware not to overuse this trick. In the past many other European countries were accessible for virtually free. Until an army of Chineses came, studied for free for 5 years and went back to their hometown without any contribution to the society (taxes, intellectual contributions...). That's why Sweden granted recently the free access to only Europe citizens that anyway pay common taxes in their own country.
- wobbleblob 11y ago> If you take a 3500 $ Swedish salary with all the taxes applied, your life level might be equivalent as a 7000 $ salary in US. That really depends on your lifestyle. I spend a lot of time in both North Western Europe and the states. I find that the cost of housing, car ownership and driving, power, clothing, basic luxuries are far lower in the US. The higher cost is in things like education, health insurance etc. Over a lifetime it might balance out to the same, but as long as you're healthy and working, a $7k income in most of the US will buy you a life style a European with a $3.5k income could barely imagine.
- GuiA 11y agoAnd then you have all the French engineers currently moving to Silicon Valley because a $1XXk salary working for a world known tech company is more interesting than 30k € working for an SSII where you'll have a chain of 10 MBAs above you, or applying to companies that won't even look at your resume unless your degree is certified by the CTI, even if you're probably a better engineer than 90% of their employees. Well, that's what I did anyway. Part of me wishes I could have the career fulfillment I currently have back in France, to give back to the system that made me (l'École de la République, what a beautiful dream!), but sadly that's not possible. Oh well, that's what the UK expats are for, right?
- the_watcher 11y agoI work with someone who got a graduate degree in Germany. She simply can't believe anyone goes to college in the US without massive scholarships. From the student's perspective, I've come to agree.
- adventured 11y agoMedian household student loan debt - for those households carrying any student loan debt - is ~$13,000. That is not crushing. And keep in mind, that's for the whole household unit, the median student loan tally is even lower for individuals. The median monthly household payment is $160, and the median ratio of income to payment is 4%. The US has among the highest median incomes and median disposable incomes of any countries. It's obnoxious that the cost of college has soared so much in the last 15 years, there's no question about that. However, it is still very possible to get a high quality and fair priced education in the US. Those popular media stories about people carrying $80,000 in student loans? That's in fact talking about a small fraction of all student loan situations.
- liquidcool 11y agoHow is the quality of engineering education in Germany these days? I quote Paul Graham: "There don't seem to be many universities elsewhere that compare with the best in America, at least in technology. In some countries this is the result of a deliberate policy. The German and Dutch governments, perhaps from fear of elitism, try to ensure that all universities are roughly equal in quality. The downside is that none are especially good." [1] He goes on. Is this still accurate? [1] http://paulgraham.com/america.html http://paulgraham.com/america.html
- mushi3 11y agoDisclaimer: I'm asian and obtained my Master degree in Germany. I am now working in academia in Germany. Yes, Graham goes on. With a bunch of what I consider to be odd statements: "There are few Jews left in Germany and most Jews I know would not want to move there. And if you took any great American university and removed the Jews, you'd have some pretty big gaps. So maybe it would be a lost cause trying to create a silicon valley in Germany, because you couldn't establish the level of university you'd need as a seed." So, basically you need a bunch of Jews in order to create a decent academic landscape? That sounds pretty far-fetched. In turn, I am going to offer some anecdotal evidence as well: the faculty I am working / doing research for is providing an international CS degree (MSc.), taught solely in English. We get a lot of international students, the majority from Asia, with only around 15%-20% of German students each term, but given that we partner with some universities in Canada and the U.S., we also have a share of students from those countries. I have been working here for about 5 years, which equals 10 semesters, i.e. I have witnessed at least 10 different batches of students coming here, and so far, US/Canadian students didn't stand out particularly. There is of course some selection bias at work, in that students studying abroad need a certain financial background, language and social skills etc., but I'd counter Graham's "argument" and say that what the German government tries to do is not to ensure that all universities are of (roughly) equal quality, but that there is a common, minimum baseline as to what to expect from a certain level of education. Our university is part of an organization that spans several universities, research institutes and for a lack of a better word, "think tanks" that offer both education and research facilities for industry / government partners. Each university has student teams that participate in international competitions in our sub-field of CS and constantly come out among the first three places in those competitions. Again, this is a biased result of course, maybe education is simply quite good w.r.t. that specific field, but I highly doubt it, given personal experience. And yes, I consider my personal experience to be as valuable as Graham's assertions above, who is not personally involved in German academia and is providing some very odd reasons for the perceived success of U.S. universities...
- edward 11y agoThe drinking age in the US is 21. This doesn't stop college students from drinking, it just means they can end up in trouble with law enforcement or the university authorities. US students who study in Europe are free to drink without breaking the law. Also, some would argue that Germany beer is better.
- pluma 11y agoAlso, binge drinking frat parties aren't a thing in Germany. There are fraternities ("Burschenschaften"), but they're very different and far less popular. They tend to keep to themselves more and are less visible to non-member students.
- tP5n 11y agoSadly, I find the article to be fairly misleading. First of all, the living costs are far higher than they make you believe and then there is the "free degree" vs. "semester fee + x" debate that is actually very different from university to university in germany - and I believe they are oddly mistaken when it comes to the University of Munich. Where I studied, the rent was 350-450€/month and the semester fee around 250-300€/term. True, the health insurance for students is incredible (~70€), but I'm not going to comment on what the BBC apparently thinks is reasonably in terms of "Groceries" and "Misc.", that's just seems weird to me. Bottom line, as a student you are not going to get by with 7k/year in Munich. Oh, and hey, you need to get accredited at a university first, of course ;)
- pluma 11y agoPedantic tangent: saying Germany has "abandoned" tuition fees is not entirely correct. Until a few years ago there were no tuition fees in public universities in Germany. In fact there still aren't any non-public universities, though there are private academies. University education is also not as common in Germany as it is in the US: although more jobs require formal education and certification in Germany (e.g. if you professionally paint cars in Germany, you need a specific formal qualification to do so), there are long-standing trade-specific education systems that provide these, rather than universities. These are typically three to five year trainings consisting of an internship as well as formal schooling. Historically university has been more academic in nature, being considered to be more about higher education than a job qualification for the industry. In other words, someone with a university degree effectively has no job experience but may understand the higher-level concepts of the business domain (i.e. the "why") whereas someone with a non-university trade education has less high-level knowledge but a lot of hands-on experience (i.e. the "how"). Public universities only charge a comparatively low fee (typically around EUR 200-400), which mostly covers services provided by the university's student union who also often negotiate deals like public transit tickets (which are then paid from the student union's cut). The student unions are thus able to adjust the fee to provide additional services but generally puts decisions which would result in higher fees up to a direct vote by all enrolled students. The decision-making council is also directly elected by the students (which has resulted in a political microcosm that is quite similar to the government-level political parties). A few years ago, Germany officially adopted the Bachelor/Master system because various European nations decided to standardize higher education degrees across Europe. The general argument for doing so was that it made degrees from different countries more comparable and thus reduced the HR headaches for internationally hiring companies. Shortly after the BA/MA switch, Germany changed a law that previously prohibited tuition fees in public universities so it only specified a cap of EUR 500 per semester (on top of the existing baseline fee). This was officially part of an initiative to raise the quality of education, along with funding for universities that were trying to create "elite" faculties (i.e. specialising). Officially this would not result in reducing the government spending on universities but it was an open secret that the cap would be raised over the next years as tuition fees gain more acceptance and thus allow the government to slowly pull out their funding to make universities more independent. Officially it was also predicted that most universities wouldn't set their tuition fees to the legal maximum. Predictably, the vast majority of universities introduced tuition fees at exactly the legal maximum (EUR 500 on top of the existing fees). While EUR 700-800 is still "low" by American standards, it effectively meant an up to 3x increase many students couldn't easily afford. To add insult to injury, the universities' invoices would often contain ads by state banks offering student loans at "reasonable" terms (i.e. lower-than-average interest and they'd pay the tuition fee for you so you continue to only have to pay the baseline fee yourself, giving you the illusion that nothing has changed until you graduate or drop out and suddenly have accrued quite a bit of debt). It should also be noted that culturally, Germany is a nation of savers, not loaners. While most students were previously able to graduate with no debt at all (except for a public grant known as BAFöG which covers up to 100% of the baseline fee with only the difference accumulating as debt) the tuition fees threatened to change that entirely. Also predictably, the students reacted quite vocally. There were lots of protests all over Germany and the way most universities handled was a bit upsetting because it violated the silent historical agreement (established by precedent after the famous 1968 student protests) that university disputes are handled non-violently by the university and its students, not by riot police. After spending a few months explaining to students that tuition was here to stay and that EUR 500 per semester is entirely negligible (to quote the head of the University of Cologne: "just drink one less beer a day" -- I should probably add that binge drinking frat parties are less of a thing in Germany), some universities finally dropped the tuition fees, resulting in a slow cascade as the growth of applicant numbers shrank for those universities that still maintained non-zero tuition fees. Nowadays, I don't think any university still charges tuition fees. I'm not sure whether the government intervened at some point and repealed the act that allowed them in the first place or whether it was entirely "voluntary" but they're effectively gone now. It's important to recognize that the outrage was less about the specific sum -- while a 2x-3x increase in cost can be world-changing for low-income students, it's still manageable, especially if you can stomach taking a loan (or are poor enough you don't have to pay the fees at all). The more important thing was that it created a slippery slope. The only reason the tuition fee was that low was that it was the legal maximum. Adjusting that maximum would have been politically much easier than passing the act that allowed the fees in the first place, especially if the increase is gradual. A change from zero to a low value is much more intrusive than a change from a non-zero value to a higher value. Introducing tuition fees set a precedent that created a potential path to US-level costs while also turning student debt from an exception to the norm. The UK is a good parallel (tuition fees were introduced in 1998 with a legal maximum that has been increased several times since). Yes, dear Americans, the US is considered the negative example by German students -- although German politics and industry of course fawn over the quality of elite universities in the US (while ignoring that the quality of German universities compares favourably with non-elite universities in the US).